Yes it does.

Perform a coolant pressure test to confirm.

BogusSVO said:

Yes it does.

Perform a coolant pressure test to confirm.

Click to expand...

What will I need to look for? A leak in another spot that could be drawing air in?

do you know what a leak down test is? Have you also done a compression test? grab one from the local auto store you can rent one too.

A coolant pressure test will push coolant into the cylinder that is weak, or anywhere there is a leak.

A leak down test will force air from the weak cylinder into the water jacket, you will see bubbles in the rad.

Last thing I knew they do make a test strip like you would test the water in your pool, to test the water in the car that will tell you if exhaust fumes are getting into you coolant. Which will tell you if you have a bad head gasket. I can't remember what they are called ill look it up and post when I find it.

The strips are called cooltrak and you can pick them up at most auto parts stores

iugrad92turbo said:

do you know what a leak down test is? Have you also done a compression test? grab one from the local auto store you can rent one too.

Click to expand...

Yes I know what both are, unfortunately none of the auto parts stores in my area rent then out.
I plan on building a coolant pressure tester, though purposely pushing coolant into my cylinder doesn't seem fun, ill give it a shot.

This also seems odd since I am running L19's and an mls HG...yes block/head were properly prepped. Over 16000 miles on rebuild and the hg starts pushing combustion gas one day. Weird.

Did you feel your bottom hose cody?? Was it hot?? I was messing with mine today and i can hear the thermostat broken inside .. its blocking water i believe.. lets just hope thats our problem..

Also, i will not be doing anything other than a leak down test because hydro locking my engine does not sound like a good way to find out if my HG is bad or if my head is warped.

No the lower hose is straight up cold.

Haha yeah no joke

This is Tyler by the way.
if the lower is cold, than i'd say your thermostat is broken also.. im thinking thats my whole problem

no oil in coolant or vice versa? or smoke or sweet smell from exhaust? I find it hard to believe it would all of a sudden blow the hg if its lasted this long.

could be HG or water pump but mostly the HG. good luck

jed344 said:

no oil in coolant or vice versa? or smoke or sweet smell from exhaust? I find it hard to believe it would all of a sudden blow the hg if its lasted this long.

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Nope, oil and coolant are fine. That's why im so lost in this. Ill get a leakdown test done to confirm.

thermostat is notorious for going first, it will prevent the flow and cause hot temps especially if your upper hose is warm/hot and the lower is cold. I would start there first like boostkrazy said, also not sure how your duct work is from your fmic through your radiator and condenser. Also key to dropping temps in our cars and water wetter helps too FYI.

The thermostat is new and the old one was still operational, I am still convinced its the HG. Ill pull out the thermostat and see if that makes any difference. I have duckting to force as much air through the FMIC then throught the radiator,
I have had it setup like this for quite a while so I`m fairly confident it is not the issue.

The lower hose is cold because the air/gas coming in from the blown head gasket is forming an air pocket around the thermostat preventing the liquid coolant from heating the thermostat and letting it open. Lower coolant hose cold could mean thermostat too especially if there's not a tiny hole for letting trapped air pass through when closed. When i blew my head gasket the heater wasn't blowing hot and the lower hose was cold as well as the bubbles coming out of the overflow reservoir. Are you seeing huge thick clouds of water coming out your tailpipe at any time? That would be blown hg for sure. My bet is on head gasket from what you've described.

I'm sure you probably know this but just in case....if it starts to overheat NEVER let it get up to the red on the gauge. You could crack your block then you're looking at alot more trouble. If you're still driving it that is.

Just smell the coolant. Easiest method I use.

Yeah I stopped driving her, tax return finally came in so I can get it diagnosed correctly.
In the mean time i picked up a ford festiva! With a blown hg -_- fortunately that should be a 1-2 hour job, gotta love simple sohc engines.

the lower hose cold points to a t-stat. but the bubbles in the cooling system can only be a head gasket. in a pressurized system, air cannot get in, only come from a higher pressure source. might be a bad t-stat that lead to overheating leading to a blown hg.the l19's and mls dont make your deck surface indestructible to overheating. its actually less forgiving with high temps than a composite hg. only holds pressure better (boost). if you get a compression tester and put an air fitting on it (like for an impact gun) and run air into a cylinder through a regulator you have effectively created a leak down tester which just puts air pressure in a cylinder so you can see and hear where it escapes from. but this will typically only work on a hot or warm engine since the voids and failures are expanded enough to leak through. an easy check would also be a "block tester" its about $30 at napa. its a tube with a special chemical you pout in it, then put it where your radiator cap would be. if there are any combustion gases present the liquid turns from yellow to green.

Im sure you've already done this. But check your oil too.
If the headgasket is leaking, you may end up with water in your oil (depending where on the gasket the leak is (might be multiple areas)

If the water and oil mix, youll get a milk brown color in the coolant or oil.

It sounds like you are losing compression into the water journals though.

Do a compression test. (is this an OEM head gasket, or aftermarket? )

do you have arp head studs?

The head may be warped, or you may just need to re-torque the head bolts.

My lower hose was cold after a tstat replacement. Went and bought and OE Exact and the problem went away. Previous tstat was a cheap Stant. ( Junk IMO. )

Have you checked for exhaust leaks? How fast does the car reach operating temperature?

Have you checked the overflow tank for oily residue in the bottom? Have you checked to make sure your fans work? And lastly have you checked that the water pump is indeed pumping coolant?

Just put your current T-stat in a pan along with water and a candy/liquid thermometer (or watch the whole process carefully), bring water to boil and see if the thermostat opens.
FYI, water boils at 212 degrees F.

If it works you can rule out the thermostat.

I had the same thing happen to me about a month ago after a few back to back hard pulls. boiling coolant out of overflow, white smoke out of tail pipe. Drained oil, no anit-freeze/oil mix and didn't see any oil residue in the coolant overflow. New rebuild had roughly 5k miles on it, new everything installed.
My head gasket was a MItsubishi OEM composite, I think I found what might be a pin hole in the headgasket.

oil in coolant, coolant in oil, dipstick blowing oil.... smoking like a diesel. These were my symptoms... SUPER obvious. If it's time, change it anyways.

take oil cap off... if on the cap looks like brown milky puke.... da da daaa head gasket.

Take a good look at your plugs too, if they look like they have been steam cleaned then coolant is getting into the combustion chamber (of the clean plug(s)). Also your HG may not be blown, it is possible the head cracked if it was overheated to much (this happened on one of my trucks recently, but it was a cast iron head that cracked).