How fked am I?

  • Thread starter Thread starter vinlc80
  • Start date Start date

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

Not many doing HG as PM but a lot of us have had to do the HG on these rigs including me.
It’s a pretty common problem with these rigs.
Do you do your own wrenching?
Dreading the day mine goes. Ik it’s coming. 250k miles on my ‘97 original. Think it’ll last for my 2400 mile each way roadtrip to Colorado in 2 months? 😬
 
Recently I thought I had a bad coolant leak but just ended up being the rear heater lines rusted out causing the leak. I would check those

I’m going to do that. Looking at it, these heater lines kinda bad. I’ll replace it. Would you happen to know the part number?
 
:popcorn:
 
Can I clean the oil cooler and replace gaskets, etc? Or need a new one?
It’s a radiator inside a cavity of coolant. There are gaskets and I think I’ve seen 1 pic of a hole in the radiator. You have to take it out and inspect it.

Typical HG is coolant in your oil. You
seem to have oil in your coolant.

Drain down you coolant and pull off the oil cooler cover. You’ll know immediately if it’s your problem. There should be no oil in the cavity.
 
Get yourself a block tester and some test fluid. Go from there.
 
But my question is, it’s been driving 3k miles since the PO owned it how come it did not create a muddy sludge on oil or rad? What are other ways to find out if it is HG is bad besides the Maddox HF tester?
 
But my question is, it’s been driving 3k miles since the PO owned it how come it did not create a muddy sludge on oil or rad? What are other ways to find out if it is HG is bad besides the Maddox HF tester?
pull the plugs on it and show us Pics.
also, with a cold engine compress the top radiator hose by hand and have someone start the car, if a bad HG leak into compression area etc the hose will go hard very quickly
 
Mine was a slow but steady drop in the coolant level in the reservoir, after refilling a couple inches a couple of times in a month I knew I had a problem. All my hoses were solid and I wasn’t losing it on the ground, leak down on the cooling system confirmed the diagnosis. Truck was running fine and this was my first sign of a problem. Failure was caught early and the failure was at the rear water jacket on #6.
 
Head gasket failures can give a variety of symptoms depending on exactly where the gasket has failed (ie, what's been connected that shouldn't be) and how significant the leak is. You have a head gasket failure. You don't need to see all the same symptoms other people have seen to confirm it.
 
Well, any trusted LC mechanics in SoCal?
 
In most cases there's no need to do the bottom end. These motors are very strong.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom