Head Gasket Time

[sdg3205]

Tonight, while changing my oil I saw this:

IMG_2178.jpg

Back in the winter when I was installing my Spec 1 system, I took a few days to really scrub the block with brake cleaner and wire brushes, so everything was beautiful. Naturally, when I was changing my oil those dried up coolant marks caught my eye. For all I know, it has been leaking like that for years but I never knew it because of all the grime. At any rate, there you go. I also saw some white, dried up coolant on the bottom of my starter motor, but it is hard to attribute that to a leak with all the plumbing and the possibility that I leaked some while filling the tank or bleeding the system. I'll have to clean it up and see if it re-appears. I have no oil/coolant cross contamination, no snot under the fill cap, no loss of coolant etc. I only "overheated" the car once in 2010 and that was to just north of 220, maybe almost the next tick up before I caught it and stopped. Doesn't mean the PO didn't overheat it. The plastic grill inside the fill cap is concave, but otherwise not distorted.

I have a combustion-gas cooling system tester I'll use to confirm.

[David T]

Tonight, while changing my oil I saw this:

IMG_2178.jpg

Back in the winter when I was installing my Spec 1 system, I took a few days to really scrub the block with brake cleaner and wire brushes, so everything was beautiful. Naturally, when I was changing my oil those dried up coolant marks caught my eye. For all I know, it has been leaking like that for years but I never knew it because of all the grime. At any rate, there you go. I also saw some white, dried up coolant on the bottom of my starter motor, but it is hard to attribute that to a leak with all the plumbing and the possibility that I leaked some while filling the tank or bleeding the system. I'll have to clean it up and see if it re-appears. I have no oil/coolant cross contamination, no snot under the fill cap, no loss of coolant etc. I only "overheated" the car once in 2010 and that was to just north of 220, maybe almost the next tick up before I caught it and stopped. Doesn't mean the PO didn't overheat it. The plastic grill inside the fill cap is concave, but otherwise not distorted.

I have a combustion-gas cooling system tester I'll use to confirm.

For minor leaks try Bar's Stop Leak. It works. If it doesn't you can always pull the head.

[sdg3205]

I have heard only bad things about stop leak products. Some people have had their heater cores clog as a result. Can it ever be flushed out?

[dn010]

Be warned if you do try this miracle in a bottle it has the potential to clog your system up if it isn't clean so flush it first. Another complaint of mine is that some types of these are a PITA to clean up from an engine once you pull it to actually fix it.

Maybe some folks have good luck with that stuff but I would not use it personally. I stopped about a decade ago when all they did was dirty your cooling system and not seal a thing, today I curse about it when I need to work on an engine someone has already tried it on.

[sdg3205]

Case in point!

Like I said, I bet my engine has been doing this for a years. What's another summer?! As long as there is no coolant in the oil I don't think much bad will come of it.

[micmak]

I wouldn't worry about it too much, Dave. As you say, it could have been like that for years and there is no big problem as a result of it. Think twice before using one of those “stop leak” products. They can sometimes cause more problems than they solve. I had a radiator get plugged up with that stuff years ago. It did what I wanted to do which was stop a leak, but the radiator was not able to handle the same volume of coolant because some of the small “channels” inside the rad got plugged up with the product. The result was over heating and eventually a new rad and a really good system flush.

.....Mike.....

[Some guy]

I wouldn't worry about it too much, Dave. As you say, it could have been like that for years and there is no big problem as a result of it. Think twice before using one of those “stop leak” products. They can sometimes cause more problems than they solve. I had a radiator get plugged up with that stuff years ago. It did what I wanted to do which was stop a leak, but the radiator was not able to handle the same volume of coolant because some of the small “channels” inside the rad got plugged up with the product. The result was over heating and eventually a new rad and a really good system flush.

.....Mike.....

After you replaced the radiator, did the head gasket leak come back?

I added it to mine after a $9000 quote. I was at the "what do i have to loose" point.

It worked and now i watch for the leak. ( I only added like 1/3 of the bottle)

[David T]

After you replaced the radiator, did the head gasket leak come back?

I added it to mine after a $9000 quote. I was at the "what do i have to loose" point.

It worked and now i watch for the leak. ( I only added like 1/3 of the bottle)

I have used Bar's Stop Leak for many years and have had good results. My guess is for the ones that have not had good results they overdid it or used it multiple times. Use it once and if it doesn't work, using more will make a bigger mess. You should only use it with clean coolant. If the coolant is brown and soupy don't expect anything to help. Also be sure to follow the directions so read them before using it.

[sdg3205]

I finally had time to take another look at this "leak." Help me understand this:

In that picture, you can see dried, white coolant residue, right? Today when i looked again I had a little drop at each location. How? The engine hadn't even run, heat up, built pressure etc! So I dried them up and put a pressure tester on it. The system held 15psi for 30 minutes and not one drop showed up again. I went for a 20 minute drive and checked when i got back. Nothing.

Why?