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Blown Head Gasket Information

A blown head gasket is usually an expensive repair, sometimes hard to diagnose and always a headache. It usually starts with a leaking cooling system that goes unnoticed or a car that is simply not maintained. Suddenly you have a car that is overheating and this causes the the head gasket to go bad. This is a common scenario. This article will help you figure out what to do.

Common Symptoms

Engine Overheating - This is one of the most common symptoms, but there are other causes too so don’t think that just because your car is overheating that it is a head gasket problem.

Coolant Level Continually Dropping - If you have to keep adding coolant to your radiator or coolant reservoir but there are no visible leaks then you might have this problem.

Engine Misfire - Usually there are other symptoms as well, but if you have one cylinder in your engine that is misfiring it is possible that is is being caused by coolant leaking into the cylinder and causing it to not fire.

Excessive Smoke From the Exhaust - This usually happens as the leak gets worse. More and more coolant pours into the cylinders and is being burned up by the combustion process which creates steam, but it looks like smoke coming out or your exhaust.

These are some of the more common things that might indicate a blown head gasket, if you have one or more of these things happening with your car then you should consider this as a possibility.

Diagnostic Tips

One of the best ways to diagnose this problem is to use what is called a “block test kit.” Basically this is a device that detects exhaust gasses in the coolant. It consists of a piece that fits into the neck of your radiator (with the radiator cap off) and is filled with a blue fluid. You then start the car and let it run for a few minutes. If the fluid turns to yellow then you have exhaust gasses in your coolant indicating a blown head gasket.
Another way to check this is to use a “cylinder leak down tester”. This is a cheap tool that you can buy from Harbor Freight (You do need a source of compressed air though). What is does is injects pressurised air into the cylinder. With the piston at TDC on the compression stroke it will be able to tell you if the air is escaping through the valves, rings or cylinder head. This tools works great and is another great way to diagnose this problem.
Using these two methods you will be able to diagnose almost all of this type of problem that you have quickly and easily.

Head Gasket Repair Cost

Unfortunately this type of repair is usually very costly, and not something that most do it yourselfers should try themselves. It is a job that requires very in-depth knowledge of cars as well as a good level of skill to perform.
If you need an estimate for this type of job feel free to check out my repair estimator here: Repair Estimator

Is This a Good DIY Auto Repair?

Unless you have a lot of mechanical experience and you have an extensive tool collection this would be an extremely hard job to pull off. I have done this job in a friends garage when I didn't have much knowledge about how to do it and I have done this as a professional technician with years of experience. I can tell you that if you try to do it yourself (especially if you don't have much experience) you will probably make things worse.

Conclusion

Even though this gets very expensive when you take your car to a mechanic it is still worth it. That is provided that you have a good mechanic that you know and trust. This is a job that is easy for a technician to mess up on so trying to do it yourself is just not worth it.