Symptoms of a Blown head gasket???

monte87

Founding Member
Feb 26, 2001
876
18
49
new york
Guys-

What are Symptoms of a Blown head Gasket??????? Are Fel Pro 1011-2 H/G's any good? Im starting to wonder of all these dayuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum noises are being caused by a blown H/G????

Mnay Thanks-Anthony:bang:
 
Water in the oil or oil in the water. But you can blow the gasket and have neither one. A compression test is the only way to find out if the head gasket is blown.

Only use a compression tester with a screw in adapter for the spark plug hole. The other type leaks too much to get an accurate reading.

With the engine warmed up, remove all spark plugs and prop the throttle wide open, crank the engine until it the gage reading stops increasing. On a cold engine, it will be hard to tell what's good & what's not. Some of the recent posts have numbers ranging from 140-170 psi. If the compression is low, squirt some oil in the cylinder and do it again – if it comes up, the rings are worn. There should be no more than 10% difference between cylinders. Use a blow down leak test (puts compressed air inside cylinders) on cylinders that have more than 10% difference.
 
Jricketr-
thanks for replying, My friend did a compression test, All cylinders cam out 125 each, straight across the board.
I have a leaky heater core thoiugh, Do yout hink-Its sucking in air through that weak point and filling the manifold with air, causing all the noises?

Thanks Anthony
 
Are you having any other cooling problems? Sorry I don't know what else you have experienced with this problem.
One time I had a blown head gasket on my '90 GT and it would put bubbles into the coolant overflow when at idle, and anything above 2000 rpm would pressurize the coolant system with cylinder pressure and puke the radiator out everywhere. New gaskets and it ran fine for another 100k miles.
 
Roland69 said:
do you see any drips from the weep hole

No drips or anything. im gonna do the napa block tester tomorrow to see whats really up, im just plain tired of this. my buddy who is acracker jack mechanic helped me out with the Afr's and cam install, and even he is stumped. im soooooooooooooo lost man.
im thinking maybe the Eddy W/P is bad and making noises throughout the manifold, because the bypass hose does connect to the T-stat housing-and that is whereabout the noises is coming from. Whatta ya think about that guys?
 
Once you disconnect the belt, noise is istantaneously gone. connect it-Its Alive.
if it were a bad H/G, would it make noise regardless of the belt, being it would be releasing gases into the coolant-crerating bubbles anyhow-right?
 
OK-She passed the test 3X..... This weekend we tested the car for a blown head gasket using the Sanp on-"Combustion block tester" and it passed 3 different times fluid remaing blue and never turning yellow. And just to see if the test was working-We placed the pump into the tailpaipe, and it turned yellow immediately-So no blown head gakset.
I highly doubt its the timing chain, brand new FMS part i put in @ the time of the AFR's and cam swap, so i dont suspect it. plus the noise is coming directly from the coolant system.
We were listening and feeling around, You get stroing pulsating on the T-stat housing and the upper rad hose, and water pump houses (bypass and heater core) big time. im starting to suspect the water pump. its sad-because its an Edelbrock hi flow-W?P that is ony 1 year old. But whatta ya guys think about this **** now????
Thanks Anthony
 
Can you describe this "noise" in detail? Is it a pinging, rattling, sweaking, squealing, banging, tapping, etc.? Removing the belt and thereby removing the noise is a sure indicator to me that it's an accessory, just gotta figure out which one.

It's possible that the water pump's bearings could have been damaged in shipping. Those things get knocked around something terrible (unless Edelbrock packages them a lot better than your average parts-store pumps) and the shaft and/or bearings could have taken a beating. While it's running, look very closely at the end of the water pump shaft/pulley - is there any wobble at all to it? This is easier to check out if you're running an electric fan, as having a clutch fan on the end of the pump may mislead you; that is, it could be the fan clutch that's going out, as they can wobble off-balance and tear the crap out of even a brand new pump. (But if that were the case, you'd probably feel a lot of vibration at anything above cruising RPM's...)

Hope this helps.
 
Darkwriter77 said:
Can you describe this "noise" in detail? Is it a pinging, rattling, sweaking, squealing, banging, tapping, etc.? Removing the belt and thereby removing the noise is a sure indicator to me that it's an accessory, just gotta figure out which one.

It's possible that the water pump's bearings could have been damaged in shipping. Those things get knocked around something terrible (unless Edelbrock packages them a lot better than your average parts-store pumps) and the shaft and/or bearings could have taken a beating. While it's running, look very closely at the end of the water pump shaft/pulley - is there any wobble at all to it? This is easier to check out if you're running an electric fan, as having a clutch fan on the end of the pump may mislead you; that is, it could be the fan clutch that's going out, as they can wobble off-balance and tear the crap out of even a brand new pump. (But if that were the case, you'd probably feel a lot of vibration at anything above cruising
RPM's...)

Hope this helps.

DuDe- First off,
thanks for respionding. The noises is something i have never heard before in my life. its like a metallic "Tink-Tink" like 2 sppons getting smacked together, it would mislead yout ot hink it was a valve train noise, butits not. it comes directly fromt he T-stat housing & lower manifold connection, you can literally feel it through the small water pump hoses with your finger. Like a mall vibration...
here ya go-Imagine this, Turn your A/C on-and hear how the compressor turns on and off-with that clicking sound-thats the ****er! but louder and more vibration. Envison it-Some weird ****.

Hit me back w/thougths, Anthony:bang:
 
Well-Guys,

We can eliminate the water pump. Just replaced it with a WEIAND W/P and it still makes the dreaded noises. WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What else can this be???
I mean-Can it be a faulty AFR head??? or a bad head gasket, but not show itself from overheating or any other symtom of a bad H/G????
i mean, i never had this problem until i added the AFR's heads. Everything was the same E7's and all-car ran great and zero noises. Add the AFR's-Bammmmmm, noises.
Please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ant
 
bluevenom867 said:
Does it still stop when you take the belt off?

If it doesn,I would check all your assecories,alternator,pulleys and balancer.With and with out the belt to see if anything is bent,or worn.
Yup-It stops when the belt is disconnected. It also stops when i add 10lbs of pressure into the cooling system via STANT radiator cooling sytem checker pump. i rpelaced the water pump this last saturday-thinking it was a bad pump, and it wasnt, noise is still there. And were not talking about a small noise, This is a loud, metallic clicking, tinking noise-that can be heard when you open the drivers side door from underneath the car with a set of flows on. Yikeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!
Ant:bang:
 
If you take a long screwdriver and place it on the T-stat housing, you can hear the flow and like bubbles pooping and making tick, tick, tock, pop, pop noises....If you put your hand on th3e aluminum rad-You can liteerally feel the vibration-Its sick!
 
Almost sounds like you have air in the coolant lines, but i wouldnt think that it would make a metal to metal sound. Go to sears and pick up a stethoscope. It works a lot better than the old screwdriver trick, plus its only about $15 and will hopefully save you a lot of frustration.

Anthony
 
Yellowpnoy said:
Almost sounds like you have air in the coolant lines, but i wouldnt think that it would make a metal to metal sound. Go to sears and pick up a stethoscope. It works a lot better than the old screwdriver trick, plus its only about $15 and will hopefully save you a lot of frustration.

Anthony
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Did the stethscope thing as well. Thanks. Same story.... We jacked up the car about 4 feet in the front and purged the air outta the system while holding throttle @ 2500RPS... cra was quiet afterwards while running outside the shop for 40 minutes. It only started on my drive home after a while o f driving.
Dude-if its air, where the fugg is itcoming from? I tested the cooling system, everything was constant 16lbs.:bang: i thought air in the system as well. it does sound like its bubbling, and that may be causing a hoit spot making the itnk-tink noise. But from where is the million dollar question?
 
Done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the answer to the miserable 10 week ****ing problem is-a HEAD GASKET on backwards on the passenger side........
im proud to say-Its corrected, finished and done....... AMEN!:hail2: