head gasket questions

when they blow, and for some reason i dont realize that they've gone, is my motor fu@#ed?... i've heard white smoke pours out the back, thena gain i've also heard black smoke can happen as well... are there any tell tale signs that will hint that the gaskets are getting weak? the gaskets are the only thing that i always have in the back of my mind when i lay on the pedal a bit... im always afraid something might go. i've got a 89SC 5spd, gaskets are stock from teh day it rolled off the assembly line.....

well in my case when mine went it was leaking coolant out the rear of the gasket. I dont know of any signs a head gasket is going other than if you car is getting up there in miles its coming. espically on the SC. Signs of a bad HG are your car running hot, rough white smoke out the tail pipes due to the engine burning coolant and the most obvious is oil that looks like milk. If you want to be safe if your motor has a lot of miles on it and you have the time and money just change them it could save you money in the end because if your HG does go out you could warp your heads and cost you alot of money.

Mine went out last sat. night , I was pretty heavy in the throttle, next thing ya know white smoke. ..... 4 days later and $$$400 and its almost back together.. when I took the head off you could see where the passanger side gasket had tore apart and ripped the ring .

Borrow a Cooling System Pressure Tester from Autozone and install it on the rad. Start the engine and go look at the pressure gauge if you see the pressure on the gauge rising quickly your HG's are blown. Takes about 10 minutes to do this and is as easy to do as replacing the radiator cap.

hg's

when mine went out the first signs were when the car was parked for about three hours or more it would miss a little upon start-up, like the plugs were starting to go bad, nothing very serious, but just enough to be noticeable, after about 5 seconds it would run smooth again. and it would need water every few days or so, that happened for about a month and then it got really serious, missing really bad, heating up to the upper end of normal on the temp gauge,the white smoke, and the most obvious, the milky oil. after the tear down i found out it was the number three cylinder where the gasket blew. my thunderbird's engine had about 115,000 miles on it. hope this helps.

my gaskets just went about a month ago, and yes white smoke poored out of the tail pipe, car got hot fast, and my oil looked like coffie with creamer in it. but these are all obvious signs. i dont think that there are any signs before they go. but when they do i would get that radiator pressure tester, but since you dont want to run your engine any more then you have to then just drain the oil and then pressurize the radiator and if coolant comes out of the drain plug then most likely hg.

When the head gaskets blow, white smoke will be coming out of the exhaust. Also the car will run bad. The temp gauge will pin quickly. Another sign is the resorvior (sp?) tank will be bubbling.

If you are blowing back smoke, it is probably under load and not the head gaskets.
Later
Ken

thanks, your replies have helpd be quite a bit.... i just wish that there were early signs of when its needed to be replaced, rather than them going then obvoiusly u need to replace them.... it hink i'll do that test from autozone or whatever that was...if theres even an autozone here if the rings get messed up, is that a huge job as well?........ my temperature is always lower than normal......like on the gauge NORM..... it sits at about the N or inbetween the N and O......oil pressure is always higher than lower.....like by the R and M