Old Head Gasket Pics - Looks good?

[MoJ]

Original head gasket preemptively replaced at the dealer this week. 124k miles. I had no symptoms of a failure other than a possible slight coolant leak - perhaps an inch down in the over flow bottle over several months. It looks good to me but I'm far from an expert - whatta ya think?

 

[Slomo]

Pulling my head this weekend and I bet it will look nowhere near that good with 128k. Of course mine blew the HG yesterday. Looks pretty darn good to me.

 

[turbocruiser]

I'm not an actual expert, I just sorta sponged off whatever I was able to absorb from Robbie but that HG looks relatively good except for a few things - if you look at the fire ring round the cylinders were the ring is black not shiny - as I understood it that is carbon creeping out from below or above the fire ring - does not indicate a bad HG as such but it does indicate a less than perfect seal. Several of the other fire rings have the thinnest of shiny sections left which would indicate the seal there's slightly fading too. I'm not talking combustion gasses pouring into coolant passages just less than the ideal seal. I'll say that that HG looks basically better all around then mine did and again I had no single symptom of failure. At 124K yours is about 20K younger than mine was, it prolly could have gone longer but it was not sealing as soundly as I would have wanted so prolly a good move to replace that. JMHO.

 

[landtank]

a little starting in the #6. My gasket at the oil journel looked just like your's. This is probably the best looking original gasket that I've seen.

 

[cruiserdan]

That gasket was in good condition. There is no telling how long it would have stayed that way and it is a pitty that it could not be reinstalled to find out.

 

[tarbe]

That gasket looks good, but you have to feel mighty fine knowing you have the new, improved version going in.

At least you better convince yourself you feel that way

 

[elmariachi]

At least you better convince yourself you feel that way

Ever notice how when someone yawns across the room, you yawn too? This friggin' headgasket is the same way. I have gone from thinking "no way in hell am I worried" to "just do it and be done with it." Mainly because I am dying to see what mine looks like too. Crazy.

 

[FirstToy]

It looks really good Moj. I bet your engine would have been fine for a very long time but now it will probably outlive you!

 

[landtank]

That makes like 1 in 20 that looked ok. That doesn't really change anything in my mind as to whether or not they should be changed out.

 

[tucker74]

That gasket looks really good for 128k and definitely didn't need replaced, but like the others have said ... it's not representative of what I've seen on most. I've pulled two - one with 60k that blew and another with 118k, neither looked like this...

Tucker

 

[IdahoDoug]

That gasket looks very good but the one that replaced it not only looks better, but is more structurally strong.

DougM

 

[cc93cruiser]

You guys are some paranoid freaks!!!