Just quick question about head gasket and coolant

[Agustin Alfonso Cesar Charles]

Just wondering, is it possible for a head gasket to go bad after a mild overheat? (it happened a while ago, like a month or so), nothing really bad happened, the needle never got to the red zone, but it did climb, I was able to stop the engine on time and do the necessary repairs.

The thing is, I was having this weird coolant loss on my radiator (is a two core alumiun one), the thing is, before, the water was always up to the neck of the filler of the radiator, but now there is seems to be a loss of a 3 to 5 cups of water, maybe not exactly but the thing is that is nowhere near the filer cap, there is a gap now, clearly visible. I changed hoses, burped the system and I am not sure if the gasket is going (don´t have the tools to check compression or any of the fancy tools you have (please do remember where I live, PLEEEEEAAASSSE :stick: :stick: :stick: ), the thing is I am using old non accurate methods, for example, looking for bubbles or foam on the coolant. So far the oil is good so I am guessing the problem is between the coolant side and the piston.

So, while burping the coolant I saw foam, but this was the car running warm (getting to normal temp), and adding coolant, so I don´t know if this foam was from the pump or if it was from the coolant being hot. The thing is that, when it was hot, there were no bubbles or foam, (when cold either).

The thing is, could the gasket be BAD or GOING BAD and the car NOT overheat, and fan cycle normally between on and off (no signs of overheat, just normal operation)? also, I DID SEE BUBBLES but the thing is that this bubbles where just one or two, between a period of a minute, and the other thing is that when the fan is ON, there is not a single bubble at all, but when is off, it may appear some 4 or 6 bubbles while is off. So, I am not sure if the gasket is going bad, or bad or just my imagination and there is in fact another point where is a leak or there is still air in the system.

I am at lost completely. :pinch: :pinch: :pinch: :pinch: And I really would like to know if I have to pull the head and change the gasket since I would like to do it before changing the oil. 🙁

BTW, the car doesn´t over heat at all, and runs normal, and cranks normally too.

Topic

[dan]

some head gasket failures can accure just over time on some vehicles but usually it is due too a over heat, and even sometimes, unfortuently a slight over heat can cause the head too warp and blow a gasket.

without basic tools it can be difficult too diagnose a head gasket leak, a leak down test, compression test, and combustion leak test will help diagnose a bad head gasket, without these tests bubbles in the cooling system is sort of a shot in the dark sort of diagnosis, and too repair the blown head gasket will require more than just basic tools.

another thing you can do is pull plugs and see if any of them look cleaner than the others, or wet with coolant, and see if any of them look steam cleaned.

[Agustin Alfonso Cesar Charles]

What about the “no overheat” condition? I always thought that if the gasket goes bad, then there should be some overheat, but in fact there is none, the car seems to be pretty normal.

(after some googling) is it true that truly burping the system can take more than one day? even a week of driving before seeing normal levels? (btw, I worked on the car yesterday, and drove it around with the a/c on, so I am not sure if I should just do a long drive without the a/c and check it between a few days later).

[Lorrin Barth]

I’d suggest a new pressure cap, check condition or replace the hose to the reservoir, keep the reservoir full and watch it. There is no really good test for a slightly blown head gasket. There’s a block test but sometimes it doesn’t work.

[spelunkerd]

To me, the most important remark you made is that the car seems to be functioning normally now, so the dominant problem is an unresolved small-volume coolant leak. I suppose a head gasket could cause that but it wouldn’t be very high on the list. To answer the question about burping, yes it can take days to completely burp the system. The way the pressure cap works, you have to go through a few heat/cool cycles for automatic burping to happen — most of the automatic burping happens at night with the engine off after driving it up to normal operating temp earlier in the day. Of course if the cap seal is inadequate then burping doesn’t happen at all, and it’s not easy to thoroughly assess a cap. So, the advice to swap the cap is reasonable and inexpensive — just make sure it’s the right one for your car. To see a few bubbles in the rad fluid with engine running after working on the cooling system is pretty normal.

The way I would approach this is to begin with a pressure test of the cooling system, probably with some UV dye in the fluid to help identify where it is going. Pay careful attention to the area around the water pump and any plastic coolant elbows — sometimes they drip onto the transmission or engine body and then fluid evaporates away, so you may not find drips under the car. Have a careful look at all the hoses for kinks and pinhole leaks, especially those going to and from the coolant reservoir. Even a tiny pinhole in the hose leading to the top of the reservoir may be enough to prevent automatic burping.

[Agustin Alfonso Cesar Charles]

🙂 Just to end this, apparently everything is fine, just my mind playing games with me :stick: no overheat condition, no weird bubbles anymore, and yes, the reservoir gets more full than normal after a normal drive, and goes back to normal when the engine gets cold, so I am sure the system is sucking and pushing coolant normally during the heat – cold cycle. And nope, I haven´t had to refill anymore, not even a cup, plus, the coolant is not way more closer to the radiator cap now.

Anyway, thanks to all, 🙂 🙂 🙂 I am pretty relieved that I don´t have to take appart the car, is not that I am not willing to but, I rather not do it yet (still watching Eric´s videos to be really sure of what I am doing, besides that I bought my cylinder compression tester on ebay not too long ago so, I will be able soon to know how the car is doing banana: banana: banana: ), maybe after some 200000km more 😛

Anyways, thanks for the help and the support guys, stay dirty and keep on driving B)

[EricTheCarGuy]

I’m glad to hear your mind is at ease. To me it didn’t really seem that you had much to worry about. Should your concerns come back in the future you might look at the information in this article I wrote. It contains a video on how to check for a head gasket failure as well as the different types of overheats and their causes.

http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/what-to-do-when-your-engine-overheats

Thanks for keeping us updated and for using the ETCG forum.

[Agustin Alfonso Cesar Charles]

Guys, me again, sorry to bother again 😳 😳 😳

Well, yesterday I did a trip to the capital state, around 1000km or so, at speeds around 100 to 120kmph, 3 to 4.5K rpm on the tachometer, around 6 to 7 hours long. Long long highway.

The thing is, I did one stop, to get snacks and decided to check the engine bay, all good BUT, the reservoir was completely full, way pass the full mark, kinda overflowing, but the fan cycled on and off normally, the temp needle was in the middle and no signs of overheating, all good.

Now, I got to Caracas (the capital state btw 😛 ), slept on a nice hotel. The next morning I decide to check the radiator, and my surprise, the overflow was still quite full, but the radiator coolant was not a the top, quite far away of the top I should say. But I did noticed that, when I refilled the radiator with the coolant that was on the overflow, it got toped off, and the reservoir was like half full.

The question is: what´s going on? The system is getting air, but from where? I double checked all the hoses and clamps last week, and I thought that I had a head gasket problem but the engine holded just fine, I mean, 5 hours cruising at 4k rpms… I believe is quite hard on a engine. Well, let me correct that, 10 hours, because I did a round trip. Not a single hesitation, misfire, everything good.

The one thing I was thinking was the radiator itself, I bought like 7 months ago, is a 2 row core radiator, that time it came with a 1.1psi cap, but I replaced it with a 0.9 psi cap, since is the original rating that came with the car (thought that maybe they got the rating wrong, so I went and bougth another one). But, could it be that since the radiator is bigger, the 0.9 cap is not the one designed for it, and I indeed would need to use the 1.1 cap?

The hoses on the reservoir are new, the only one left to actually change is the hose that is inside the resevoir itself, but that one looked fine, blowed through it and no sign of leakage.

[Agustin Alfonso Cesar Charles]

INDEEED, it was the dammed cap, but not because it was faulty, because it was smaller than the original one, like 2 or 3 milimiters difference. Got the system tested up to 20 psi and no leak whatsoever 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) , the damm pressure cap was the fault. apparently, the american caps are different from the ones that are sold here, and the difference is just so marginal that it causes that damm trouble. 😡 never thought that a cap would give so many headaches. Thanks for the support btw

[EricTheCarGuy]

I’m glad you found that as I was going to suggest replacing the radiator cap. I outline it’s importance in the article I posted for you. Given the amount of coolant that came out, you might want to bleed the cooling system just to be sure there’s no air in it.

Thanks for the update and let us know if things change

[Author]

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