If I had a bad head gasket would coolant come out the exhaust ?
94 F250 460 4x4

 

yep.

Other indicators are the radiator cap blowing off with engine cool, Hoses bursting, and water in the oil. Check the oil, if there's a milky brown color in it, or visible water seperating from the oil, it's time for some new head gaskets, and while you're at it checking the deck and heads for true dosen't hurt.

 

oh, and just having water in the exhaust dosen't mean bad head gasket, bad head gasket means water in the exhaust. Water could just be condensation, so check the oil.

 

OK
Deck and heads look good. No water in the oil. I still have to fill my radiator.
So its just guess work on which head is leaking?
Does that die work? The stuff you put in radiators to find leaks?

 

it does, but sometimes for the really minute or tell-tale leaks it won't find a thing. If you think that the stuff is going to the tailpipe you may never find the die. A guy told me on another post that if you pull the plugs and they are clean, as in they look like a new set of plugs, that you probably have a coolent leak in that cylinder, as coolent is steam cleaning your plugs. That should help you narrow it down.

Also, do a compression test if you have the tester, a bad head gasket will show up in either dead cylinders or a substantial loss of compression.

 

Pull the plugs, check for rust.

 

pressure check the radiator. The die will work but you may need two things of it. It's reallt bright stuff. of course if the leak is internal then the die will not work, as mentioned already. Antifreeze in the cyclinder will burn and create a white cloud out of the exhaust, if the leak is great enough. Check the oil filler cap on the valve cover for milky brown goo. If exhaust gases are getting ion the coolant then a shop can test the coolant to verify that it is exhaust gases and if so bad head gasket.

 

Or buy a block check kit. A chemical test you can get from an auto parts store.

 

Never heard of that ?

 

It's a clear cylinder with a tapered rubber piece that fits into the radiator filler. It has a check valve in it. There is a squeeze bulb on the top. You pour some of the blue fluid that comes with the tester into the cylinder, set it in the radiator in place of the cap. Then you squeeze the bulb, which draws gasses from the radiator through the fluid. If there is any carbon monoxide in the cooling system it will turn the fluid green, or even yellow if it's very bad. It's called "Block Check."

If there is a cooperative shop nearby that has an exhaust analyzer, you can have them put the tailpipe probe in the top of the radiator to check for exhaust.

With these tests a false positive is pretty much out of the question. But bear in mind, that it is possible for a head gasket failure to happen in several ways. Of the possibilities, there can be a leak that allows coolant to be drawn into the cylinder in the intake stroke, and NOT leak combustion back into the coolant. So a negative test result does not rule out all the possibilities. That is why I suggested, as a first test, look at the plugs and check for signs of rust.