hi my name is dave and i am have an 1994 f 150,

I was driving along one day and the upper rad hose burst off the radiator. I had no idea why that happened but i had a new hose clamp on me, so i just put the hose back on, filled it up with anti freeze, let the truck idle for 5 minutes and then drove off, about 100 feet and crapload of steam later i stopped the truck, the temp gauge read hot and the antifreeze in the reservoir was boiling.

So i got the truck towed to a shop in town and he said i had blown a head gasket. He said it would be 1000 bucks to fix it and that he might just buy it off of me. I later told my brother about it and he thought maybe the thermostat was was jammed or a passageway somewhere was blocked.

My brother said he would help me with fixing it so we decided we would do the work ourselves, we thought that if the mechanic said that the head gasket had blown that we wouldn't need to do any of our own diagnosing so we started taking the engine apart.

Yesterday we got the the head off the truck and looking at the gasket i am not really sure if that was really the problem or not i took a bunch of pics and just need to know whether or not this was actually the cause of the problem, how do i diagnose any other parts of the engine that may be the cause?














Thanks
-dave.

 

Hard to tell from pics, but usually when a head gasket goes, there's antifreeze in the oil, or it's leaking out of the head. Replace your thermostat,rad cap, hoses while you got it apart.

 

I really would have got a second opinion before ripping my engine apart.
I would have checked the system out first, starting with the $10 thermostat. That would have been my first guess anyway. I believe if you had blown gasket, you would also see white smoke coming out of exhaust.
The fact that your coolant was overheating tells me that it was not circulating properly. Is your fan working properly?
Let us know how it works out.

 

yea that was the mistake i made. I get the feeling that the mechanic was just trying to screw me, especially when he said he might buy the truck.

the fan works,is there a way of checking the water pump without taking it off the engine?

 

Since the hose was blowing off, leads me to think that the pressure relief valve in the radiator cap was bad, ie, bad cap. The waterpump can be tested by running engine to fully warm-both heater hoses should be hot to the touch. If only one of them is hot, the pump may not be operating correctly. Once you get everything back together, make sure you pressure test the cooling system.

 

Some mechanics are good people but lots are not.
I prefer to be my own mechanic...saves a lot of money.
I'd put the engine back together and check/switch the parts that were recommended.
All the best!

 

thanks, i'll hopfully be working on it this weekend as it's above zero degrees for once

 

No doubt..and not soon enough for me.
Where abouts in Ont are you, if you don't mind me asking?
Nice clean looking truck by the way.....