Cold/Warm start issues -- bad head gasket?

[bluscreen]

That is a rather large amount of smoke.

Indeed-- notable even!

Now if it is steam from a cracked head gasket, you're going to notice a sizable drop in your coolant level inside of the coolant bottle. In fact, it may even totally drain if you don't pay attention to it. But hey, at least that is a symptom with a measurable result that you can go by.

Now that I think of it, the last time I filled the coolant reservoir was one of the first times I've filled the bottle up more than 1/3 of the way. It's back to 1/3 again, too. I wonder if filling it up past that point helps it to dump coolant into the engine somehow. Looking forward to the results of the pressure test.


Thanks for the write-up. I understand the meaning behind octane as well as the gas rating the DeLoreans typically prefer. I put a higher grade gasoline in for the last fill-up to help offset the lowered octane of the old (originally 87) gas in there. Coincidentally, the older gas may have been ethanol-free. There's a station a little out of the way that I try to frequent as often as possible that markets its gasoline as ethanol-free.