Head Gaskets??

David R.

Registered User
I decided my lx was going to take a lot more $ to get it where I wanted for it to still not be an sc, so I got an sc. 92 5 speed, immaculate car. The previous owner passed away, so his son helped me out with the purchase of this car.
He said it needs head gasket(s), but I brought it home and looking it over, I can't tell. It doesn't blow a ton of white smoke out the tail pipes, and I don't think it's losing any coolant. I know head gaskets are a common problem with these cars, so I imagine there might be some other tips out there on how to diagnose this issue? Or if anybody knew the previous owner, or knew about the car that would be cool, too. It was the one listed on here a while ago out in Santa Ana, Cali. Any input would be great.
 
Congratulations. These are truly fun cars. Head gaskets typically do one of two things when they go bad. You either get a lot of bubbles in the coolant expansion tank as the supercharger can sometimes flood the cooling system with compressed air or you get white smoke out of the exhaust. Still this isn't always conclusive. There are kits you can purchase to test for exhaust gases in the cooling system. These kits work well. Or if you have an exhaust gas sniffer you can always hold it over the radiator with the cap off and see if it measures exhaust gases in the coolant.
 
Check the oil and make sure it is not a milky chocolate color. It the tail pipes have any white smoke when under boost the HGs are going.
 
HEAD-GASKET LEAK TEST INSTRUMENT w/LIQUID

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&_trksid=p4340.l2557&item=280725862725&nma=true&rt=nc&si=CJQUZV5z4dc1F%252FJ6EdywIi6q70E%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

  • POUR IN SOLUTION
  • START CAR
  • WAIT FOR BURP
  • REGARD COLOUR OF SOLUTION

Yup,,, its that easy. At that price, it is something anyone considering buying one of these cars should invest in.

Heres why

I bought my first SC for a Grand because the head gasket was supposedly gone. I towed it home, tested, headgaskest was fine. Replaced waterpump and have been driving her hard ever since.

PS - please don't tell the poor sod I stole her from :D
 
Thanks all for the input. I checked the oil, and it looked fine to me, but I'll look at it more closely again, and I looked and there was no white smooke out the exhaust. I even reved it up and my dad watched the back of the car closely and there was nothing. I'll try running it again for a while, and keep a really close eye on the cooant level, but other wise I'm not seeing any signs of bad HGs. The inside of the radiator looked pretty clean, there weren't any huge bubbles or anything, so I'll just run it again and watch.
 
make sure fan is functioning...Ive seen cars get hot due to non operating fan and people assuming head gaskets are shot
 
You may also want to keep an eye out for oil in the radiator. that would indicate a faulty oil cooler. That has been known to happen too.
 
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