Headgasket failure?

BossII

Registered User
Hey guys so this morning went to the store, normally the car starts to blow hot air within 10-15 mins. Cold air, look at the temperature gauge, past half. Get home, coolant has almost started to overfill the overfilll bottle. So i'm thinking the head gaskets have finally gone on my car. I'll have to check the oil to see if it got in there. Looks like i'm doing head gaskets in the spring time. I might just go to a mechanic i know in the spring time and drop money into the car.
 
Overheating on the gauge with no heat in the car means the coolant level is low, which could be headgaskets, but also could be many other things. First thing to do is pressure test the system to see exactly where it is leaking.
 
I kept an eye on the coolant and it looks to be right full, The heat was fine for the past few days just until now. I'll see about finding a pressure tester and seeing if the car holds pressure.
 
AutoZone has a pressure test kit you can rent, and a combustion leak test kit to check for exhaust gases in the cooling system. The combustion test kit helped me to confirm headgasket issues before I tore things down. Symptoms were high readings on the temp gauge, bubbles & gunk in the overflow tank, and disappearing coolant.

As noted, tho, no heat via the heater can be one or more things...water pump could be sucking air, heater core could be plugged, air in the system via headgaskets, cracked head(s), thermostat stuck open making the engine take longer to heat up, failed heater/blend door controls.

If your car hasn't had work done on the cooling system in a while, you may need everything from radiator cap to headgaskets.

When I got my car the heater output was weak - I found someone had replaced one of the smaller hoses at the water pump and instead of molded, they used straight and folded it over so that there was barely any flow thru it.
 
I'll have to get the pressure tester to confirm. Not sure if anyone rents them here. Luckily i have a spare 3.8 sc engine if i need to replace heads, hoping that engine is good as well. The coupe is staying parked for now until i can get it figured out
 
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