Help Confirming Headgasket

[baggar11]

Just went through a whirlwind of injector cleaning and replacement this week. I've been battling a lack luster fan clutch for a couple months now as well as the overheating that comes with that. I thought I had everything fixed yesterday, but...

This morning I went for a 4.5 mile drive to the tire store to get a screw removed and patched in one of my tires. Drove 4.5 miles back home. Cruiser was spewing out coolant from the line right above the exhaust.

I tightened that up and drove it around the block with no leaks. But the temps continued to rise. I noticed out my side mirror behind me that on acceleration from a stop, I'd be putting out pretty big puffs of white smoke. Not so much at the top end though.

Pulled into the driveway and the radiator was bubbling pretty bad, temps only got up to 208, but there wasn't much I could do on the short little drive around the block to keep it down in the normal range either. Idle is pretty horrible. Seems like it wants to die and I swear little by little, its drinking the coolant.

Here are some shots that I took back to back when I pulled into the driveway. This sound like classic head gasket to you guys?

 

[powermad]

Remove the rad cap and top off the coolant.
Disable the ignition and crank it over. If it starts pushing coolant it's a HG.
Or pull the plugs and see if any are coolant fouled.

 

[bajaphile]

Interesting technique mentioned above. Never tried that one.

For me, I'd pull plugs, and check them, but also go ahead and do a compression test.

Big bubbles coming out of radiator will usually mean exhaust gasses going into the coolant, and coolant going into the cylinder. Anything in the 200F range is too hot for me. Sounds like you've most likely got a head gasket leak....

 

[baggar11]

I removed the radiator cap and used a rubber band to hold a plastic glove over the top. Started the engine up. The glove started getting bigger. I guess I'll start tearing into it.