Been smelling coolant for a bit. Saw mist coming from radiator that smelled like coolant and replaced it. Did not solve my issue. Coolant seems to be slowly lowering in reservoir and I can see spots on the head gasket where it leaked.

Not too excited about doing this one but 66k miles and no warranty means I'm on my own.

What else should I do while I'm in there? While the heads are out being ported I'm replacing water pump, all gaskets and thermostat. Might as well wire brush and degrease the crap out of it while I'm there too.

 

I would at least do a leak down test before pulling the heads, unless your goal is really to port them.

On the other hand, you can probably find a good used set of head and rebuild those to your specification and then just pull the old ones and install the new ones. It has been my experience that it takes a good month for me to get any head BACK from a machine shop, usually longer if it needs new seats.

I guess my worst head horror story is on a old dodge /6 motor in a panel truck. I first got a rebuilt head from Advance Auto and it failed in year or so, when it went to the machine shop, all valves had been ground under spec and three seats were bad, and it really wasn't economically rebuildable, but I had a spare head from a motor change project and it took the shop 14 weeks to get the other head I had back to me since the replacement seats were on back order. If I had known, I would have brought the spare head in for work long before I took the truck apart.

Or it could be that automotive machine shops get extra busy when income tax refunds come in:-)

Howard

 

Okay thanks for that info. I'll do a leak down test but I'm seeing a good bit of evidence of the gasket leaking coolant externally as well. Not sure if its from this weird temp changes from 40 to -18 or what.

 

I'd make sure its not the intake manifold leaking

 

Okay, seems possible. I appreciate the input, guys. I guess my next step is to pinpoint the spot its leaking at. I noticed a small drip from the front left of the head gasket next to the bolt.

Could the intake gasket leak and drip onto this spot? Possibly following the edge of the head gasket.

 

When our intake was leaking my first thought was the head gasket but after cleaning the front of the engine it was the intake dripping along to make it look like the head gasket

 

Okay, I'm gonna do a good bit of scrubbing and cleaning once this cold front passes through. I really appreciate the tips. I'll update this post after I clean it up and watch for leaks over the weekend.

 

Looks like intake was leaking down onto the head gasket sticking out. Saved me a lot of extra work! Thanks