Head Gasket Question

SCLarry

Registered User
I have a question regarding head gaskets that I have been trying to find on these forums for the past few weeks with no luck.

My recently purchased '93 SC started leaking coolant last week. I looked for the leak (thought it was the water pump), but could not find the source. I took it into the shop and the mechanic says it is the head gasket. All of the searches I have done on these forums do not mention leaking coolant as a symptom of a head gasket failure. Given the quote, $1600 including machining the heads and having them pressure checked for cracks, I want to make sure the symptom matches the problem.

When the mechanic gave me the quote I asked him why I didn't see the typical symptoms, such as white smoke at the exhaust or bubbles in the resevoir. He said it was because the gasket leak is on the lower section so the coolant is leaking out, not in.

Any help would be appreciated.
 
SCLarry said:
I have a question regarding head gaskets that I have been trying to find on these forums for the past few weeks with no luck.

My recently purchased '93 SC started leaking coolant last week. I looked for the leak (thought it was the water pump), but could not find the source. I took it into the shop and the mechanic says it is the head gasket. All of the searches I have done on these forums do not mention leaking coolant as a symptom of a head gasket failure. Given the quote, $1600 including machining the heads and having them pressure checked for cracks, I want to make sure the symptom matches the problem.

When the mechanic gave me the quote I asked him why I didn't see the typical symptoms, such as white smoke at the exhaust or bubbles in the resevoir. He said it was because the gasket leak is on the lower section so the coolant is leaking out, not in.

Any help would be appreciated.

This is the symptoms that I had leading up to my HG failure. In fact, the night the one blew on me, I asked a friend to bring a bottle of water to the car meet I was at so I could fill up my rad a bit. 20 minutes later, I was limping it off the highway :(

In my case, the gasget started to deteriorate and the coolant was slowly leaking into the cylinder and burnt. Not enough to cause noticable smoke, but often enough to cause the level of coolant to drop.

Do you notice anything on your driveway/street after parking the car? If not, then the mechanic is wrong, it's leaking into the cylinders but not enough to cause the typical symptoms.
 
The coolant was leaking on the pavement. It was coming out at a pretty constant pace. My first thought was a rad hose or the weep hole on the water pump. After I couldn’t find the source I decided I needed to take it to a shop.

If this is a head gasket leak, what would be the cause? Corrosion of the gasket? With the location of the leak I wouldn’t think the source from the combustion chamber. I just hope the head isn’t cracked, but I wouldn’t expect it since I have never seen high engine temps.
 
Check the core plugs (freeze plugs) in the ends of the heads. Some people won't look close enough and will think it's the gasket leaking. The stock steel plugs can rot through and/or corrode around the edges enough that the leak. Especially if the coolant wasn't change every couple years.
 
I'm not familiar with these freeze plugs, my mechanical knowledge is pretty basic. The car is currently in the shop, they are waiting for me to give them the go ahead. Should the mechanic know where these are? Should I stop in and take a look myself? Is this something I can see from the top or bottom of the engine?

Sorry for some of the dumb questions, but if I am dropping this kind of money, I want to make sure it is worth it.

Remember there are no stupid questions, only stupid people
 
Where abouts is the coolant falling? From the side(s) or the front?

I only noticed the coolant under the engine. I have not had a look at the engine at the shop yet. I called the mechanic to ask about the freeze plugs and he assured me that they are not the cause of the leak. He said he got a good look at exactly where the leak is and it is the head gasket.

I am pretty sure my mechanic’s diagnosis is accurate. I was just skeptical when he first said that because everything I found on this forum talked about smoke at the exhaust, bubbling in the reservoir, foam in oil, etc. Nothing on this forum mentioned coolant leaking on the ground. I guess I have to take the leap and trust this guy's quality and knowledge. I have talked to him a bit about this issue and he seems to repeat a lot of what I have seen on this forum regarding why this happened.

I guess my original question was answered on whether or not my mechanic is telling the truth. It is just tough when you have to spend this kind of money to learn if you have a good mechanic. I was hoping this service call would only cost a couple hundred at the most. That is a more reasonable price to pay to test the quality of a mechanic.
 
check your hoses to heather core or tell the mechanic presurre test the cooling system also look at your vac/boost gauge and see if hte needle moves or stays still ... if it has sudden drops then it could be your head gaskets this happens every time you coolant leaks into to your cylinder... if it steady all the time try checking other sources....... just a suggestion//////
 
It could be one of the metal coolant lines that run near the exhaust that have corroded and is now leaking. If you have a blown head gasket surely you'd notice a lack of performance and idle quality. When mine blew it puffed smoke like crazy. I could fix it for you for much cheaper. I just did the head gaskets on my 90 SC automatic and it runs awesome. I'm about 35 minutes south of you and I'll do it much cheaper than $1600. $500 plus parts and machine work. I could even make the garage space if I had to squeeze another car in. I hope this isn't your daily driver. It'd take me about a week.
 
Theres many different ways a HG can blow.
Blew the HG on one of my turbo cars 3 months ago. Water blew out between head and block and drained the cooling system completely dry within 20 seconds. Never had any vapor out the tailpipe and didnt get any water in the crankcase.
Looked like somebody turned a firehose on under the hood and left a nice blast of water on the interstate.
Down through the years I've dealt with 7 HG failures on various different cars and none of them ever blew the same way or had the same indications of a problem.
HG failure symptons just arent written in stone.
 
SCLarry,

Do me a favour, go out and drive the car, come home and slide a piece of cardboard under the car to see where it's dripping. This could be very informative.

That said, last Summer I had a coolant leak. Turns out it was leaking out the snout of the water pump, hitting the belts and evaporating while driving....I would get a small puddle under the car now and again.

Hope that it is indeed your pump. The cardboard test will tell you where it's falling down and I suspect it might be your water pump.
 
You can also do a leakdown test on the cooling system. Once you pressure it up you will see where the water is coming out at.
It could be at any place in the cooling system but once you put pressure to it it will leak right before your eyes.
You can borrow the tool to do this from Autozone and its real simple to do.
 
i have had a head gasket blow. somtimes you wont see
white smoke right away(small leak) but if it is your head gasket
you will soon see smoke.

But i think you should look at it first before spending the cash. (as a couple of other people have said)
 
I agree with checking the heater core cooling lines and the metal tubing on both sides, I just went through this, twice. First leak was right where the heater core line connect to the ECT sensor tube. I had no idea where the leak was coming from untill I started moving that hose around and could hear a sssssssssssssssssssssssssssss when it was hot and I had shut it off. Sure as hell right behind the clamp the hose had cut through from age(1990). This piece is no longer available from Ford and I had to make something. A few days later, leaking again, same line only this time at the other end of the metal tube, same thing, right behind the hose clamp, replaced that hose from the tube to the heater core.
 
Scott, too bad I did not get your reply before I called my mechanic back to tell him to go ahead and start the work. I stopped in the shop and talked to him yesterday. I am pretty confident my mechanic is right because I looked that car over before I took it in. This is my daily driver, but my wife stays at home so I can drive her car while mine is in the shop. By the way, if I keep the car I am thinking about investing more into it, I may solicit some help if you are interested.

BlueThunder90, before I took the car to the shop last week, I did have it my garage while it was leaking. The first thing I checked was the water pump weep hole, but no leak there. From under the car, the coolant was dripping mostly on the drivers side, but you could tell it was dripping down from something and then running down hoses, oil filter and everything so it was difficult for me to trace (you can’t see crap from under the engine). Since I couldn’t find the source (didn’t think about HG) I took it in. But I did have a look at it.

I have had the car for about 2-3 months and the guy who had it before me did not drive it much in the past 3 years. Since most people flush coolant based on mileage, I don’t think the coolant has been flushed for possibly 6 years (that was when the car had a HG replacement with almost 60K mi, and it hasn’t hit 90K yet). With that said, I think it is highly likely that the HG failure is not because it “blew” around a cylinder, which would affect performance, but because it corroded around a coolant channel which shouldn’t affect performance unless it corrodes between a coolant channel and cylinder. In my case I think it corroded on the outside of a coolant channel, therefore coolant everywhere, but no major performance issues.
 
Larry, I'd be glad to help you out with some maintenance or installing performance parts on your car. Since I'm close by.

Looking at the head gasket.... its got metal rings around the cylinders and I believe also around the two coolant passages that stick up from the block that the head sits on to hold it in postion. I don't think that its likely they'd blow there and then leak down the block, but I suppose its possible. I've just never seen it. Make sure you get the old gaskets back for souveniers and also so you can inspect them to see where/how/if they were bad.

Since he will be removing the coolant lines which are attatched to the exhaust manifold studs, have him check them to make sure they aren't leaking. Also look around the oil cooler to make sure its not coroded there either.

When the heads are off, ask to have them milled, and get the exhaust ports ported and polished. There isn't much/any room to open up the intake side when using a stock non ported intake manifold, but the exhaust side can be opened up to flow better. Also make sure the valves are removed and cleaned and that new valve stem seals are installed. Have him regrind/re-seat the valves. I would do all this for you and all you would have had to pay was for the machine work to have the heads milled and inspected.
 
I went in today to look at the engine. He was saving the head gaskets for me so I now have them. I was under the impression that the entire gasket was metal, shows you how much I know. It looks like the non-metallic part is where the leak was. You can see the deterioration on the gasket material, so my original theory on corrosion being the culprit is probably wrong. There is also some dark discoloration on one of the metal rings. The others were still silver, don't know if that means anything or not. As a whole everyting else on the engine looks good, although I am not an auto mechanic (Pretty damn good Sub mechanic though :D).

Regarding the head work: I called the machine shop and made sure they are going to be milled, not sanded (I hear sanding is bad). The exhaust ports will be ported and polished, valves will be reground and re-seated (3 way grind?), and both heads will be pressure checked. The machine shop will also be putting in the new valve stem seals.

Thinking about motor mounts also since they are easy to get to. May save me some money getting them done now.
 
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