Blown head gasket?

[HATNINJA]

does this look a blown head gasket?

[sly]

probably. and it's probably from one cylinder to the coolant lines since the oil lines in the heads are generally under less pressure than the coolant lines. Hopefully that's all it is and it's not a crack in a head/block.

[HATNINJA]

the car runs great, clean exaust. the problem is thai overheats with ac on climbimg long hills. it over heated last night coolant coming out of the reservior. so this morning before the wife took it to work i filled the water back up and took this pic but it went away after a few mins. the pic dont show it good but this is tan colored foam the big bubble is just air burping out because it dont do that all the time. its hard to find someone with a cooling system pressure tester around here i wish i had one. also i wish i had an oscilliscope.

[BGoins12]

My cooling system is/was full of rust as well. You should do a power backflush like I am going to do to clean it out. Head gasket failures on these engines are kind of rare, but can happen. I would back flush it first, then take the radiator out and take it to a shop and have them flush the radiator alone.... they seem to do a excellent job of getting all the crap out of them.... Then get it all back together and refill it with 50/50 coolant.

BTW.... if you do a flush, I recommend taking the thermostat out when doing it so you can be sure you're getting all the crap out of it.

[sly]

I had a car bust a head gasket between the oil and coolant lines once. Coolant just power flushed into the oil and made the oil look like that. If it's just freakishly dirty coolant... then a flush would be the perfect thing for it. (What BGoins12 said)

[Lincolnmania]

get one of those kits that tests antifreeze for combustion gasses

[gadget73]

Old shitty radiators will make things overheat, so will dead fan clutches. Badly overheating the motor might make the gasket blow. Dunno, that foam shit in the radiator doesn't fill me with confidence, and the fact that it bubbles constantly also doesn't give me good feelings. The bubbling is a sign of a blown HG, but it may also be air working its way out.

[HATNINJA]

it dosent bubble constantly it was just because i just filled it

[sly]

then it probably just needs to be flushed really badly.

[gadget73]

if its that nasty, at a minimum it needs a flush, but I wouldn't be surprised if you need a new radiator as well. When they get old and clogged up, the car tends to overheat in hot weather, especially with the AC on.

[BerniniCaCO3]

Yeah: I just replaced my radiator for the same reason. It didn't leak, and no issues 3/4 of the year, but in these dog days of summer it was running uncomfortably hot.

$100, 2 hrs of your time

I didn't quite figure out how the power flush worked, but what you can do, since it's warm right now, is replace the dirty coolant with water, drive for a while, drain and replace with fresh water, drive a little while, and repeat until it's running clean. Just driving it I think gets the rust moving. One person, maybe on this forum, had advised keeping it in drive on the highway so that you pull higher rpms, and really get the water moving (to get rid of more rust).

Someone else on this forum told me to stay away from the chemical agents... if you burn through your heater core, that's more than 2 hrs to replace, unlike the radiator.

[BerniniCaCO3]

but why does the coolant look a milky white...?

Mine was always coffee colored with rust, or green of course (the color of the coolant).

[sly]

another way to flush it is what I've seen others do here... back up onto some ramps so the engine is tilted forward instead of back like on level ground and drain it. then fill it... run it a bit... drain. wash, rinse repeat. when it's clean... fill it with coolant... get it off the ramps, then top it off.

[HATNINJA]

i double checked the oil and its clean so im just gonna change the radiator i think its plugged on the bottom because it wont drain out of the drain cock. man this is frustrating because i had the thing out last weekend when i changed the timing chain gears, water pump,t stat, fan clutch, rad cap. but since im now convinced it isnt a head gasket ill just change the radiator. i tried cleaning it out when i had it out but couldnt get the drain to unclog. when i look in the radiator it looks fine water circulates real good. what i assume has happened is that over the years rust has accumulated down in the corner in the area of the drain cock causing me to lose some of the radiators cooling ability. everything ive pulled of this car so far has been original.

[HATNINJA]

oh and yes i have flushed the cooling system about 3 months ago.