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As I’d mentioned in a previous post, my truck had a head gasket leak. Rather than sending the heads off to be machined, for 90 bucks more I had new ones put on (re-man, I’m sure).
The truck itself is running well, but there’s something strange about the appearance of the coolant.
It looks thick, rather viscous, and has a brownish oily appearance to it.
When I asked the mechanic about it, he said that the odd appearance is normal, as there’s a small bottle of additives that mechanics put in after the gasket job that helps the gaskets seal up.
This is the very first I’ve heard of it, and honestly.. I’m dubious.
Anyway, here’s a picture of a piece of paper that was dunked into the goo in the bottle. Tried to get a pic of the fluid IN the bottle, but couldn’t get anything decent.
Any ideas if this is a problem or not? I can’t imagine the water pump (or anything else..) is too happy about pushing this sludgy stuff around.
-Hinoki
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I squirmed in my chair the entire time I was reading this thread. NEVER put stop leak in after a head gasket job! I think you’ve done the right thing up to this point and I applaud your patients. To me, the system is damaged goods. Sure, their may not be a problem now but stop leak is like putting cement in your cooling system. No joke. That’s in essence what it’s designed to do. No as for the QUANTITY that was visible in that picture, it makes me cringe. Even if you flush out the entire system for a day you’ll still have a copious amount of the stuff in the system which can cause it not to work efficiently. To be honest I don’t know this as fact but the evidence I see at this point is disturbing.
Now lets talk facts. It’s VERY difficult to prove liability in a situation like this. The mechanic in question acted in good faith according to what he believed. I don’t believe he was trying to do any damage and up to this point he is probably unaware of the damage that COULD be caused by such a practice. So at the end of the day you may have a time bomb on your hands. If something DOES fail at some point as a result of his actions it will be hard to prove. That said you might consider trading the vehicle in. It’s really the only way I can think of that you can get out from under this situation. Otherwise I think you’re taking a big risk and you could end up burned in the end.
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is the type of situation they’re talking about. Perhaps you can get that mechanic to start watching my show, especially the videos on the use of stop leak.
One last note that might add some credibility to this mechanic. I’ve had GM mechanics post on this very forum about how GM was telling them to put stop leak into their V6 engines during the PDI (Pre Delivery Inspection on brand new cars). This was to help deal with the crappy intake gaskets GM makes. This was a ‘preventative’ measure that I believe many dealerships participated in it. I’m not saying I agree with it, but it’s been done.
Thanks for the reply here, Eric.. I know you’re busy and hearing from the Top Guy on this site? It helps make the ugly situation a bit more bearable.
I’m squirming too… believe me. I was forced into bankruptcy November last year due to medical bills. I’d bought this truck for cheap and did a lot of work on her to try and get it going. I needed it to last quite a bit longer, as I’m sure you can understand.
It was running fine until the head gaskets cut loose… and I knew it to be out of my realm of experience… not to mention that I can’t get up to my armpits in the job only to find that I can’t figure out how to put it back together. Or, actually, to not have it road-worthy come Monday. I needed this as transportation, after all.
It seems I have only two options… I can trade it in as you suggest. I’ll have to find a car they’ll take the truck in on trade, of course. The financing rate will be atrocious, but perhaps I can keep the payments within the realm of not hurting too much. I don’t feel TOO bad about trading it in… but there’s a few pangs of guilt. I mean, they’ll sell it to some other guy who’ll inherit the problem.
The only other option I can think of is to take it to the dealership and turn it over to the Service guys. Ford crate motor for a 183ci roller Vulcan motor is 2k, plus labor. See about making arrangements for payment with them, then sue the mechanic for costs, which would ignite a whole new round of problems.
I will -NOT-, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, sell this truck on Craigslist. I’ll deal with this problem since it landed in my lap. The most I’d do is stick it to the dealership or the mechanic that landed me in this situation.
But… If I might ask.. what would you do? Go the trade-in route?
It might be hard to prove liability, but I have it written on the receipt that he put Stop-Leak in the system after repairs. If the Dealership provides a repair estimate that the Stop-Leak was causing problems, I’d think that’d be enough.
Barring all of that…
What do you suggest I look at for cars? What’s good, these days? If only I could find a Protégé 5….
Beleaguered-ly yours,
-Hinoki
One thing that I’m still wondering is if he actually did a head gasket job or not? Couple of things that lead me to this thought. First is just the fact he believes it’s “normal” to use stop leak after putting in a new gasket to fix the problem. Second is the amount he used, even if he thinks it’s beneficial to put stop leak in after a head gasket job I would expect he would use one bottle since “it’s just to seal things up faster”. But from your pictures it looks like he used way more than a bottle. These two things lead me to suspect he never did the head gaskets. I may be wrong here but if it was me I would want some serious proof that he did actually do the gasket job like you were charged for.
Sorry to hear about your medical issues and it’s really stand up of you not to want to just dump this on someone else, way to many people jsut ditch a bad car onto someone that doesn’t know better. What year is this vehicle and what do you have into it? I know you said you got it cheap. IF it’s not worth a lot for trade in I would consider just flushing the crap out of it the best you can and drive it till it dies, or deal with issues as they come up. While I’m 100% against stop leak products there is a chance it will never cause any damage. Another option would be to see if this mechanic would give you a 3 or so year warranty on the whole cooling system since it was his idea to add the stop leak and NO head gasket repair instructions that I’m aware of, factory manual or otherwise, tell you to add stop leak after a new head gasket. So he went against standard procedure.
Just some options.
Whether he did or not, the question is almost moot at this point.
I know he had the heads off. I know he replaced the heads, as I saw the old ones sitting on a cart while the new ones were being bolted on. I can’t imagine he can use an old gasket, but at this point… well, almost nothing would surprise me.
So now I’m stuck with a truck that I can’t trust and not very many options. Of the options that exist, none are terribly attractive for a variety of reasons.
Not sure what I’ll do, really. I can drive the truck until it grenades but then it’s just worth scrap value. I can trade it in, but a 98 with 172k miles? Not likely to get much for it.. certainly not what I’ve put into repairs in the time I’ve owned it.
Eh. You’ve all listened to me whine long enough. I’ll figure something out and post it when I know.
-Hinoki
Well if you saw the heads off then I would say he did install new gaskets. I just can’t for the life of me understand why any mechanic would want to add stop leak after putting new gaskets in.
I’m not sure what trade in is on that year of truck but I wouldn’t expect it to be to much. If it was me I would drive it until something goes wrong. You might get a month or you might get 5 years, who knows.
Sorry.. I realized I didn’t answer your question.
I bought it for 1500.
I’ve done (myself)
Upper and lower ball joints.
Front brakes
Back brakes (I hate drum brakes!)
Oxygen sensors
Plugs, plug wires
Trans fluid (Drop the pan, replace filter, replace fluid)
Brake fluid
Coil pack.
Front shocks
Rear ShocksShop:
Head gaskets (1300.00)
I’ve a fair chunk in parts, to be sure. Also a lot of time and labor.. and let’s face it, blood. you bust knuckles working on the old rear drum brakes.
-Hinoki
I am not a professional mechanic, but I do a lot of the work on my own car. I think that some people might be too paranoid about stop leak products. I have a Cadillac with the head-gasket failure prone Northstar engine, and since I can’t afford to have a head gasket job done, I have used Bars #1111 on mine. It nearly if not completely eliminated the white smoke out the exhaust.
Although it is definitely not a replacement for a proper head gasket job, it’s been at least a year and I have not yet had any issues with a blocked heater core, etc.
Although it’s kind of maddening that a mechanic would unnecessarily put it in after doing a proper head gasket job, if I was in the market for a used truck, I would just want to find out the brand of stop leak that was used in yours and look up the reviews online to see if there were a lot of comments about clogging. If there were not, I would not have any problem at all buying it.
i agree with scott37300 100% flush it good and drive it till its dead. everyone has an opinion on what the stop leak is going to do long term, but in your case you have alot into it that you will not get back out. id pray, do the best you can and leave the rest to God. good luck to you brother.
Dug into the truck Saturday and Sunday. Figured I’d flush the cooling system as per recommendations and see what the status of it was.
When draining the coolant, I had to pull the stopcock completely out of the radiator; the Stop-Leak literally was plugging it up constantly. Little snot-balls of greenish goop.. really, it looked as disgusting as it sounds.
Wound up flushing the radiator separate, the heater core separate, and engine. Also dismounted the overflow bottle and ran it through the dishwasher after breaking up as much of the gunk as I could. Coolant bottle came out nice and sparkly clean.. as clean as 15 year old plastic can.
Here’s some pictures!
Coolant_Drained is a shot of what came out of the radiator before flushing.
Coolant_Bottle is a shot top down into the bottle; aside from a slight oily sheen on the surface, it’s clear to the bottom.Have to put in the obligatory engine bay shot as well.
So far, the truck is doing fine; I’ve got the flushing agent circulating and will drain, flush, and re-fill next weekend.
-Hinoki
Hi, I’ve read through all this thread and squirmed myself! :ohmy:
You did an impressive amount of maintenance on your truck, and I think you made the right choice to try flush all the junk out of the system and save the truck for as long it can be saved.
One of my past cars (1998 Fiat Punto Sporting MK2 – 1.2 liters – 86HP) had a similar problem.
In 2008 I had to take a long trip and since the car was starting to get older I took it to my mechanic to get all the belts and tensioners changed, just for preventive maintenance.
And while he was replacing the belts he noticed a leak from one of the hoses that got from the heater core and into the back of the engine block.
Since it was a small leak and also because that particular model of car had a pattern failure on the heater core (it’s made by two plastic parts that start leaking and your windshield gets foggy, and mine had a great tendency to get foggy), he put something like stop leak into the system and told me it would stop the leak and prevent the heater core from failing.And all went well, even though I always noticed an increased tendency to overheat, in fact the cooling fan was on more often than before, and the temperature gauge had a tendency , in the summer, to go a little more up than before.
However the car kept on going until 2011 , when the water pump gave up after lots of leaks and it was finally replaced.
However I cannot shake the feeling that the “stop leak” had covered all of the internal surfaces of the cooling system, reducing its ability to cool down the engine.
What I mean to say here is that the car may not die from the stop leak , so you may just get lucky and get some more years of good use from it; just keep an eye on the water temperature! 😉
Best luck! 🙂
P.S: that car is still going! 🙂
Live long and prosper (and stay dirty!)
10nico
[quote=”98cadillac” post=52519]I am not a professional mechanic, but I do a lot of the work on my own car. I think that some people might be too paranoid about stop leak products. I have a Cadillac with the head-gasket failure prone Northstar engine, and since I can’t afford to have a head gasket job done, I have used Bars #1111 on mine. It nearly if not completely eliminated the white smoke out the exhaust.
Although it is definitely not a replacement for a proper head gasket job, it’s been at least a year and I have not yet had any issues with a blocked heater core, etc.
Although it’s kind of maddening that a mechanic would unnecessarily put it in after doing a proper head gasket job, if I was in the market for a used truck, I would just want to find out the brand of stop leak that was used in yours and look up the reviews online to see if there were a lot of comments about clogging. If there were not, I would not have any problem at all buying it.[/quote]
The Northstar has deeper problems. What happens is the head bolts pull the threads right out of the cylinder block thus loosing tension and allowing the head gasket to leak. To fix this you need to drill each hole in the block out and install a thread repair kit before installing new head bolts.
In my opinion stop leak is NEVER a good idea. Well perhaps if you’re trying to sell a car but that would be underhanded. Think of it like this, would you put wet cement in your cooling system? If not, consider that’s exactly what you’re doing when you’re using stop leak. It’s designed to set up in the cooling system just like cement. If it’s not used properly not only will you not address the problem but you could end up with a hunk of cement SOMEWHERE in the cooling system. This could end up in the block, the radiator, the heater core, all places it would be unpleasant to fix.
The moral of the story, don’t use stop leak and if you do make sure you use it properly or pay the consequences.
Eric,
I respect your automotive knowledge and acknowledge that you most likely have more experience than me on any given mechanical subject.
However, although (as noted in my previous post) stop leak is definitely not a replacement for a proper head gasket job, and I would not even think of using it if I were able to perform a proper repair on my engine, it can be very useful as a last ditch effort to avoid having to junk a car.
Perhaps sometime I will be able to afford to have Norms NS300L thread inserts installed, but until then, my $25 solution has served me well to this point while I’m waiting to be able to afford the $2500 “proper” solution. It can likely help others who are in the same situation as well.
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