88 EF Hatch

Does any one know how to actually test to see if head gasket is bad? I know what symptoms look like but I want to know how does a shop test it.

1fastek24

I live out in las vegas also and have replaced many head gaskets , dennis at ldl is wack and so is mikey at factor x , If you need help i can do it cheap but to answer your question they usually do the following.

1.Fill coolant and reservoir and let idle for 15-20 min if car doesnt overheat then let cool down and check coolant level , if your missing coolant your headgasket is taost

2. When you open the radiator cap and u have pressure come out then you have air in the system and that can also be a blown head gasket

3.Compression test sometimes can help tell

88 EF Hatch

no i know how to do head gasket myself, i just wanted to know, cause my car overheats and no coolant is consumed, no coolant is burned, no coolant in oil, and everything else has been replaced. took it into hondoctors and they told me head gasket, so they wanted arm and leg for it so i was gonna do myself and when i took off head yesterday there was oil in my cylinders but no coolant. and head gasket looked fined...

1fastek24

hondoctors are a bunch of kids that know nothing , jarod is a complete idiot and i would never take advice from that shop.

Have you checked your thermostat before you took off the head?? It could have been not opening all the way causing the car to overheat , I had that problem once i thought it was a head gasket and ended up being a bad thermostat so i replaced it and with a new housing and thermostat and problem solved!! Did you bleed the air from your system you could have a air pocket also causing the overheating

How hot did the car get before you shut it down ? Wapred head ? Did you have any blow by around the head gasket you could see when you removed it ?
Also your water pump may have took a ****


Oh bTW all that advice was free and would have cost you about 50 dollars an hr .... JK

88 EF Hatch

u need to read my other threads man, you dont know what type of headache i have had with this car... to sum it all up, i replace thermo 2 times with auto parts thermo, car still overheated, so just took out and ran with no thermo, car still overheated, installed oem honda thermo, car still over heated, replaced water pump twice, car still overheated, pressure tested cap and radiator, good results, removed radiator and checked for blockage,, easy flow and no blockage, ran fan all day and still over heated, replaced temperature gauge and fan switch, still overheating, took it to shop, they said head gasket, ...

88 EF Hatch

so I pulled head off and head gasket was perfect! No cracks, flakes or wear.....but ne ways I'm replacing but when I looked on the block walls I had build up of dirt/mud...it was a significant amount. Could that have caused a blockage? I noe where it came from, I didn't have an intake or filther for about a month and I constantly drove to cali/nevada stateline and back to vegas ( a lot of dirt in air due to dessert)

88 EF Hatch

yea i work in primm so thats my entire headache

1fastek24

If you did all that then its 100% the head gasket, Only use OEM gaskets mr freind and dont ever run a car without a filter or intake , I wouldnt be surprised if you have a bad or clogged fuel injector and thats causing the motor to run lean and overheat.... Do you know what sand does to the inside of a motor ? It pitts the soft metal causing it to not flow smooth and can cause serious motor problems like your having now.

88 EF Hatch

so then what do you recommend i do? after replacing headgasket should i use some kind of injector cleaner? so your saying dont use felpro gaskets? and what they told me is that if my head gasket was blown that explains the dirt in my coolant cuz other wise i should have had that

1fastek24

DONT USE FELPRO !! I have blown every head gasket you can think of . I have used mugen , cometic , and even had removed the middle layer of OEM the 3 layer gasket on my k24 to raise compression . Just use oem they hold up the best and wont give you any problems. I doubt the injector cleaner will do anything and before it starts working you may already be overheating again and blow your head gasket , I would send my injectors to RC to be tested or if you can find used set cheaper maybe, Do all your pistons look the same color on top ?? If one is darker that another that means one cylinder in running rich while the other is running lean

88 EF Hatch

Yea cyliinders 2 and 3 look the same, 1 and four4 differed from each other, 4 was a little darker(I've seen worse) 1 2 and 3 looked the same..

dlaub25

iTrader: (1)

Just throwing this out there....

You recommended all that to him and haven't even mentioned a leak down test. Probably the easiest way to diagnose headgasket issues. IMO

1fastek24

he metioned he already pressure tested it so i thought it was done already but ya thats one way to tell also , but if you have no tools the idle for 15 min method works great

dlaub25

iTrader: (1)

He said he pressure tested the radiator cap. A leak down is a completely different procedure. Involves connecting a pressure regulated hose to the spark plug hole. You then monitor the amount of pressure being applied vs the amount of pressure the cylinder is holding. If you do have a significant leak you can then look and listen in various places to try and pinpoint it's origin.

GL

Kris

I know this is an old post but I hate when people bad talk the shop that I work at...I personally tested this car and combustion was in fact leaking through the headgasket into the cooling system.

The end.