Sick Vet

[Utah]

Had the vet out yesterday and it started making a noise in the front. pulled over and the temp went up and it stalled. then steam came out from the hood. checked it out, oil level is up, rad drained and coolant resevoir is still up. the rad was full when i started drinving it as i checked it. no fluid on the ground.

had it towed back to town, and my mehcanic said it could be the head gasket, and the fluid probably flushed back into the engine. does this sound right? is it an expensive fix??

UtAh

 

[JonM]

Check the oil...if you have brownish milk shake looking oil...you have a blown head gasket. (anti freeze getting into the oil) When you start the car with the cap on feel the hose. If it expands rapidly (gets hard) then you are getting combustion into the water. To isolate which cylinder is leaking, remove all the spark plugs (check for discoloration) Get a cooling system pressure tester (they will loan you one at Autozone) and pressurize the cooling system to specification, normally about 20 PSI. Leave the system pressurized for a few hours. Now lay down some clean paper towel along the cylinder heads where the spark plugs were. Crank the engine over for a few seconds. Since the spark plugs are not in place any antifreeze that leaked into the cylinder will be blown out onto the clean paper towel. Examine the paper towel for the telltale signs of antifreeze and you will be able to tell which is the guilty cylinder.

If you are good with tools its a pretty stright forward job...you have to remove the manifold and the head (s) Just remember to use a book and torque to specs.

Could also be something as simple as a lock up T-stat

 

[jmccloud]

Sick

Could be you simply blew a radiator hose or heater hose. With a really bad leak, the coolant volume of the engine can not pull a vacuum upon cooling so the coolant reservoir will remain full even though the engine has no coolant.
Good luck

 

[Utah]

havnt got any time off work to work on it yet, but plan on doing a compression test on wednesday.

if im looking at head gasket replacment, what is it going to cost??

also, when the engine is apart for this, is there anything else i should think about replacing at this time, or anything for performance that could be done now while it is apart??

utah