head gasket?
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head gasket?
So yesterday I'm driving to work and my truck overheats. I pull over and steam is coming out of the radiator and middle of the engine, and the exhaust is steaming. So I cool it down, limp it home and its shaking and clattering the whole way home. I figure its the head gasket so I get head, intake, and valve cover gaskets today and go to pull it into the garage, but seems to be running ok. Just a little water in exhaust at idle, but none after driving a few minutes. Idles just a little rough, but drove pretty good. I was thinking I could stick some stop leak in it and nurse it through until christmas vacation and then replace manifold and head gaskets. What do you think???
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Joined: Jan 2001
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From: Virginia
Pull the spark plugs and see what they look like. If you have a head gasket problem, you should see and smell evidence of anti-freeze on the plug.
Running rough could be as simple as the coolant from the radiator splashing all over the distributor and the plug wires, making it miss.
Running rough could be as simple as the coolant from the radiator splashing all over the distributor and the plug wires, making it miss.
Lead Driver
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 5,491
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From: Kuna ID
Check the things Dave mentioned to see if you have a leak. If you do, dont use the whole bottle or tube of stop leak. I usually use the powdered aluminum stop leak and only use a few pinches of the stuff. If you use the whole tube and then drain the coolant later to change the gasket, you risk having all that extra stop leak hardening where ever it happens to be sitting. It could potentially block a coolant passage in the radiator or block.
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I put in a bottle of stop leak and went to the junk yard and bought a new radiator to replace the leaky one that started all of this. I think maybe the truck runs better than ever! No more steamy exhaust, but the radiator still leaks like a seive. I'll install the new radiator and pull the plugs and check back. Gonna start gathering parts for EFI swap as I don't trust my good fortune for too long. thanks
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