Signs and Symptoms of Warped Heads?

Warped heads blow head gaskets. If you have an excellent machinist square and some good feeler gagues, you can check to see if there are any low spots. However, this does require a certain amount of skill & experience. The only other way to tell if they are warped is to pull them and send them to the machine shop. The only way to fix warped heads is to have the machine shop re-surface them.

Warped heads and blown gaskets would allow coolant to seep in the cylinders. This would cause the engine to be hard to turn over when it is warm.
1.) Do you see a continous stream of bubble when you open the radatior cap with engine warm & running? if so then you might have a leaking head gasket. Go to step 2.
2.) Have you done a compression test to make sure all the cylinders have the same compression within 10%? If one or more cylinders are very low, that would indicate a leaking head gasket.


Many starter problems that cause hard cranking on a hot engine are due to poor electrical connections or starters that are going bad or are heat soaked.
3.) Have you checked/replaced/cleaned all the electical connections for the starter wiring?
4.) Put the car's transmission in neutral or has someone press in on the clutch. Jump the big terminals on the starter solenoid next to the battery with a screwdriver - watch out for the sparks! If the engine cranks, the starter and power wiring are good, and the solenoid is the problem.

I would have to put a $100 on the starter. Heat is a starters worst enemy and will cause it to be weak like you explained. Hell for $70 just get a starter.