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Blown Headgasket?

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mr2krazee

Proven Member
179
2
Nov 30, 2012
spokane, Washington
hey so i already searched ALOT and i havent seen much that fills the voids here for me so with that being said heres my problem. a few days ago i notice the temp go up SLIGHTLY on the temp gauge during some spirited driving so i back off and crank the heat. temp goes down so i dont think much of it... well a couple days later in the morning the heat starts coming out cold and the temp gauge slowly rises towards overheating, weird part is that as soon as i start driving the heat gets hot and temp stabilizes which made think the cooling fans were going out, so i get it home (down the street pretty much) and i hear no boiling sounds or anything indicating overheating nor did i see the temp rise on the trip back. so i found air in the coolant system and burped the system accordingly and bam the temp gauge stabilizes and the heat is now hot again. so i figured it was just an air bubble that somehow got into the system, well that was a week ago and i have no overheating issues or poor performance but i have water droplets coming from the tailpipe and a decent amount of white smoke (steam i believe) from the exhaust. the coolant system seems to be pressurized also because when i take off the radiator cap i hear a suction hissy sound, so the part that baffles me is that i did a compression test and got 150,160,150 and 160 and i have NO other blown HG symptoms such as milkshake oil or rough idle... the car runs great and pulls hard. any ideas here???:hmm:
 
Are you losing any coolant over time? I had a problem where the trans side of my block always looked wet but i never saw anything leaking so i figured it was coming from a blown head gasket. Turned out it was one of the heater core coolant lines had a pinhole leak that only opened when the motor got really hot but never leaked otherwise. My car also ran fine until I would push it then I'd see the temp go up but it would go down with some careful speed and stop leaking.
 
Are you losing any coolant over time? I had a problem where the trans side of my block always looked wet but i never saw anything leaking so i figured it was coming from a blown head gasket. Turned out it was one of the heater core coolant lines had a pinhole leak that only opened when the motor got really hot but never leaked otherwise. My car also ran fine until I would push it then I'd see the temp go up but it would go down with some careful speed and stop leaking.

I think i am losing coolant as well. i checked this morning before i noticed the smoking and i took a little bit of water to top it off, i also noticed that the overflow tank level is somewhat lower than the last time i looked at it a few days ago.
 
okay, im wondering if your "150,160,150,160" pressure readings were your cylinders and not your coolant system, if its not your cylinders then your looking at bad rings.

and how fast a rate does your 1g talon overheat at, this is a recent incident as well, no history behind the car?
 
First off your coolant system is pressurized, and if in fact your removing the radiator cap and not the overflow tank cap then the hissing sound is normal.

And im not sure what the guy above me is talking about. Your better off doing a leakdown test rather then a compression to test to diagnose a blown head gasket.

I've also seen people who think the smoke out of the tailpipe is white, when its really got a blue tint to it and the turbo/motor is burning oil. A blown headgasket doesn't always cause coolant to mix with oil, or the other way around so that's no sure way to tell
 
pressurize the coolant system and see if your headgasket is leaking.
 
I had all the same issues as you except no white smoke. If it wasn't for that, I'd say you just had a busted heater hose like me. I'm leaning more towards a hurt HG for you but you should still try to rule out some bad hoses first. The hose that failed on me had a small crack that would only open up peridocally and spray when the car was very hot or I was pushing it. Then it failed completely once I flushed the coolant system.
 
I had same problems as a few have stated, small leak from heater core hose just after the junction in the (lower?) Line. Would only leak when hot, it took me a week to find it because every time I looked it was bone dry but then coolant would be missing
 
I never had anything out the tailpipe but when this happened to me it was a leak in the system (random leaks to start, then ended up being the water pump later on going out on me).
 
First off your coolant system is pressurized, and if in fact your removing the radiator cap and not the overflow tank cap then the hissing sound is normal.

And im not sure what the guy above me is talking about. Your better off doing a leakdown test rather then a compression to test to diagnose a blown head gasket.

I've also seen people who think the smoke out of the tailpipe is white, when its really got a blue tint to it and the turbo/motor is burning oil. A blown headgasket doesn't always cause coolant to mix with oil, or the other way around so that's no sure way to tell

yea its definitely steam from the exhaust. i dont have a leak down tester, so i did the compression test just to see. the smoke is not oil smoke i know that for sure.

are your fans turning on?

yes they are.

I had same problems as a few have stated, small leak from heater core hose just after the junction in the (lower?) Line. Would only leak when hot, it took me a week to find it because every time I looked it was bone dry but then coolant would be missing

yea i dont have a leak, and im leaning towards it being a headgasket because of all the white steam and excessive amounts of water from the tailpipe. i had a mazda protege that did the same thing, and it was a bad headgasket.

okay, im wondering if your "150,160,150,160" pressure readings were your cylinders and not your coolant system, if its not your cylinders then your looking at bad rings.

and how fast a rate does your 1g talon overheat at, this is a recent incident as well, no history behind the car?

no previous overheats before the mentioned incident. it does not overheat currently as i addressed that matter immediately. sorry but i disagree on the rings because this is a pretty fresh engine (rebuilt recently), and the compression is within spec as well as the fact that it is clearly steam from the tailpipe, not smoke as others had suggested. the excessive water droplets exiting the exhaust further my suspicions. thank you all for your replies, i always feel better after talking to fellow DSM'ers in the event of a puzzling issue.
 
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