how can u tell if a head gasket is gone or u got a cracked head??

heres the deal while driveing steady car temp will stay cool/get cooler when hot. but when sitting stoped in traffic temp goes right up. oh and car does not smoke at all.

 

With a cracked head you could have a leak into the cylinder wall causing the car to run rough because coolant is leaking in, causing the plug to foul. Check your oil to see if there is coolant in it. If it's an external leak you could have pressure loss in the cooling system which would cause the car to run hotter. Check your fans to make sure they are working as well.

 

Well, for starters, is you cooling system up to par? Particularly is your cooling fan running?? Doesn't sound like it.. If your head was cracked, you would be blowing smoke, or mixing fluids. Not to mention you would be down on power somewhat.. See if your fan works.

K.I.S.S. =Keep it simple stupid!

Don't rush into a head job with out some sort of evidence to back it up. That could be 1 of a handful culprits, but not likely from your description.

 

This sounds normal to me. Your temps goes up while you are not moving because there is no air going over the radiator. When the temp gets to high your fans will kick on. That is why you have them. If your car never came to a stop you would not need fans.

 

no there is no coolent in the oil and car still runs grate with no smoke at all. i have done everything to fix this problem. i put a new fan, changed the thermostat,i even bought a new rad. i have tryed everything, the only thing it can possibly be now is a head gasket. is there a way to check forsure? also did i miss anything?? oh and yes the coolent is mixed perfect.

 

Do any of your spark plugs look unusually clean? If so, you might be burning coolant in that cylinder(s).

 

Depending on how hot it gets, I agree with Shifty. That sounds like normal operation.

 

no not normal operation because if i sit idleing it will overheat/anti freeze start boiling.

 

Do your fans come on? If not I bet that is your problem.

 

i dont have fans i had a clutch fan that i thought was the problem orignaly so i put a new flexalite fan (best one) with the right spacer. and problem was still there. so i went and bought a new rad, problem still there

 

Have you flushed your cooling system and changed that? I would hope so if you changed your rad already. Just wondering, because a buddy of mine had, not overheating problems, but his car was running a bit rough and the coolant was brown. He changed that out, and it started running much smoother and about 20* cooler. Just food for thought.

 

If there's no coolant in the oil or vise versa... then I doubt its a head gasket... my old V6 car had a similar problem and it was the thermostat... but you said you changed that...

 

new rad cap? mine was bad the the fluid would boil

 

well i did not change the thermostat, when my car first overheated i blamed the stat first thing. i took it out only to see its fine, so i left it out to keep the engine cooler until i find the problem.

yes i did replace the rad cap, and the water pump looks to be running perfect/strong

the coolent was flushed when installed the new rad.

is it possible that i fixed the orignal problem and now the thermostat is the problem?

oh there is something that might be related, after my car is off for sometime when i start it back up smoke will come out the exhaust for like a second then stop. the smoke is not white though, it looks normal to me. i dont remember the car doing this before but then again i took out my cat so i just figured it was because of that. could the start up smoke have anything to do with this?

this might sound stupid but i want to make sure. i have a tranny cooler and i was wondering if it was damaged in anyway could that cause this problem?? one time i noticed that there was air bubbles comming up in the overflow tank when the coolent was nice and cold still(like farting in a pool lol)

im not going to get the gasket fixed untill 3 more weeks when i come up with enough money (poor student) so i have 3 more weeks to see if its something else so please keep this ideas comming.

 

Maybe you have an air bubble in the engine? I had one after my 350 went in, and it was in the water pump. It didn't let any coolant be pumped around, and it always boiled over.

 

the smoke on start up is your valve seals, this is a very common problem (if you can call it a problem) with 3rd Gens. I would get that out of your mind, dont worry about it for now.

If you are really bent on getting this fixed, you could always put in a manual fan switch, which would allow you when to choose to turn on the radiator fans to cool down the engine.

Also, have you replaced the engine coolant temperate sensor? If your engine coolant temperature sensor was starting to go bad, then your fans would not turn on at the right time. On my carb'd car the Engine Coolant Temperature Sensor is right in the thermostat housing... by the way, there are two different sensors to tell the temperature of the car.

The Engine Coolant Temperature Sensor (ECTS) tells the car's computer (the ECM) what temperature the coolant is, and at a certain degree it will turn the fans on.

There's another one called Engine Temperature Sending Unit (ETSU) this one shows the degree of the coolant in the gauge.

 

if i had an air bubble would that cause the antifreeze to not flow right? mine looks to be flowing nice and strong. would not installing the new rad have taken away any air bubbles??(when installing a new rad does that flush the system?)

k so the start up smoke is out..thanks

again i dont have electric fans, i have a single flex-a-lite fan. (the fan is not the problem for sure)
the only sensor i have that is related to temp is the sender unit on the side of my head just below my headers, and its to give the temp of my coolent. i have a 1983 with a swaped 350, i got like no computers, sensors, or smog crap.> old school setup lol.

could someone tell me if a bad tranny cooler could somehow cause this problem????
and should i put back in my thermostat??
and does air bubble comming up in the overflow tank when coolent is slow mean anything??

come on people HELP me out, i need suggestions here lol i really dont wanna dish out another 800$CAN to fix the gasket after i just spent almost 400$ on a new fan,rad,adapter,flush,cap, and so on for nothing lol.

 

Do you have a fan shroud? I had a mechanical flex-a- lite fan on mine with no shroud. If I stopped at a light it would start to get hotter and hotter. It has to have a shroud. I ended up going back to my original electric fan and wiring it to run constantly.

 

yes i do, i have the top shroud, and i have the airdam under the car. next..lol

 

You said you took out the thermostat completely? That might be it, but can't say for sure... and just because the stat looks ok, it could still be bad... thats what happened with mine. A new thermostat isn't expensive (maybe $15 Canadian)... I'd try replacing that before anything more expensive... wish I could help you with the tranny cool question, but I can't.

 

pressure test the cooling system.

 

Did you pull the radiator cap off and check for coolant flow? The water should be flowing pretty quickly once the stat is opened up. If it is not you either have a stat problem, water pump or a collapsed hose problem.

I have done some experimentation with stats installed, 1/8" holes drilled in them, guts removed and no stat at all. I have come to a conclusion that the theory you have to have a stat to slow the coolant down is a bunch of bull****. You want that coolant to flow fast to keep it cool. The only reason I can see for having a stat is to keep the engine at operating temperature.

I think the clutch fan is a lot better at moving air at idle than your aftermarket fan you have now. I run a plastic fan on my Chevelle because I have a monster 4 row radiator and all kinds of room under the hood and it stays cool. I should throw the clutch fan back on to gain about 5 hp though.

In an F-body it is a small engine compartment which needs all the air it can get and that clutch fan moves a lot of air. My 83 T/A runs cool with one plus it has a clean radiator as well with a new water pump. Timing is at 10 degrees initial and the temp guage stays a little left of the middle.

 

I have had allot of cooling problems since I did my 350 swap back in '99, I've pretty much got it under control, it stills runs at about 200 on my digatal gauge and 220 on my factory gauge. Right now I have 4 eletric fans, a 2 1/2 radiator, and I run strait water with 2 bottels of red lines "water wetter", also I tried to go without a 'stat, and it made things worse, so I put a 160* one in it and that helped allitle, also to get the air bubbles out of the system, you need to run the engine awhile with the thermostat in place, as the engine heats up the air will expand and come up through the coolent resivor, I reccamend letting it idle for awhile with a garden hose running over the raditor, also is the trans cooler in the raditaor or is it seprate, the one in the raditor will rais the temp of the coollent signifigantly, and the same problem will happen if a seprate mounted one is too close to the radiator, also you said you have the upper shroud, do you have the lower one, it should be 2 halfs, with the lower one bolted with 10mm bolts to the rad lower support and the upper one bolter to the upper support and lower one, you need both of the shrouds for the system to cool properly with a mechanical fan.

 

The fan needs to be completely surrounded with a shroud in order to work properly, otherwise you might aswell not have a fan at all. You don't have underdrive pulleys do you?

 

1. Correct the shroud issue.
2. Replace the stat with new.
3. Make sure you didn't catch/melt a plastic bag or some such in front of your rad.
4. Assure the bottom radiator hose has a spring in it.

You are running 60/40 DISTILLED water/antifreeze, yes? Any additives like Water Wetter?

Should this fail to correct the problem your next endevour should be compression and leakdown tests as well as a pressure test of the cooling system.