Headgasket???

Hey folks, this is a little vague but about 3 months ago, stepdaughters little ford overheated on her. I worked on a couple of her older cars for her only to have her take it someone she knew and ask if I did it right. This time, told her to take it to a garage because she prolly had a stuck thermostat. She did and the garage told her she needed the headgasket at a cost of about 1500 euro. Asked me what to do and I said she either had the headgasket done change the thermostat and drive it til it's shot and junk the car. FF to today, car is still fine. No leaks, (wasn't any before) and temps are normal. It's a daily driver with a 100 mile RT twice a week on the autobahn with a leadfooted kid.

Went to the shop and told him about it and he said they put pressure on the cooling system and it leaked down. No external leaks so it had to be the headgasket.
Maybe the pressure sealed the spot back up and things are fine now.

Think that's a possibility or just a garage taking advantage of a young driver?
Guy has always been good with our vehicles but didn't know the ford had anything to do with us til today.

Thanks for the opinions.

Dave

Any leak in the system at a location higher than the (possibly low at the time of the test) coolant level may go unnoticed because only air leaks out. In other words, if you don't notice a leak it does not necessarily mean that the leak is internal in the engine. So the fellow in the garage may have been correct in his diagnosis but not necessarily, and I think he has been proven wrong, albeit 3 months later... hindsight is always easier than foresight ;-)
Did or does any coolant get into the crank case?
My 2 cents (Euro cents of course), Hendrik

Hey Hendrik!
The car is fine. No oil in water or water in oil. I think she had a stuck thermostat. I like the guy but can't help but think he was attempting to drum up some business at her expense... Headgasket set is about 200 euro, rest was labor. Guess I'll just watch him a little closer.

Dave

Dave, the critical thing here is coolant loss. If you are losing coolant, externally,there should be some wetness/leak somewhere. If you are consuming fluid, that is worse, because if coolant is leaking into a cylinder, exhaust can also be leaking out, and if the leak is big enough, you can get incompressible fluid into the cyl, and end up with a bent rod. If it was mine, I would run an exhaust gas presence test, on the coolant, and maybe retorque the head bolts. If the test comes back negative for exhaust gasses in the coolant, run her!

Mechanics make mistakes, too, and he might have been playing it safe, too.

(quoted from post at 06:20:19 03/09/11) Dave, the critical thing here is coolant loss. If you are losing coolant, externally,there should be some wetness/leak somewhere. If you are consuming fluid, that is worse, because if coolant is leaking into a cylinder, exhaust can also be leaking out, and if the leak is big enough, you can get incompressible fluid into the cyl, and end up with a bent rod. If it was mine, I would run an exhaust gas presence test, on the coolant, and maybe retorque the head bolts. If the test comes back negative for exhaust gasses in the coolant, run her!

Mechanics make mistakes, too, and he might have been playing it safe, too.

Click to expand...

This isn't my tractor this time. Her little car is just fine. No collant loss or overheating since the 1st time when she took it in. Guess I should just blow it off. People make mistakes, this just was a little close to home.

No harm done.

Dave

Maybe the shop's tester has a slow leak??

Most head gasket leaks won't show any signs of leakage. Instead, you typically have problems with the radiator overflowing before the thermostat opens up, the result of air being pumped into the cooling system. If the replacement thermostat was a bit leaky, it could allow air to escape and mask the head gasket symptoms.

On the other hand, if a cooling system test is done on a warm engine, it can look like there's a leak where none exists.

I wouldn't trust what somebody said about a test unless I watched them do the test.Also it seems like to me that cars any more have a complicated cooling system.The Ford I had with a 4.6 v8,you had to fill it with a funnel or it would get an air bubble in it.If you tried to fill it by pouring it in,it would get an air bubble in it.As long as it had water at the right level it was fine.Let it get low and you started having problems. I bought a book on the engine and read about it,and that's when I found out you had to fill it with a funnel.After I did that,no more problems.You just pour it in until its overfull a little and run it and it will pull it in,keep some in the funnel until it quits going in.
I don't know if your Ford would be that way or not.
Another time,with a Ford,It was getting hot,new thermostat,and still getting hot,so I took a heater hose off while it was running,no water?As I messed around with it,water started coming out the hose,so I put it back on,problem solved,engine didn't get hot any more.The heater didn't work,but it quit getting hot.Then later I switched the hoses and the heater started working.Somebody had put the heater hoses on it wrong.That was a 302 in a 79 Ford pickup.
On both of those Ford engines they had an air bubble in there somehow. I don't know if that's what you had or not.I wouldn't even worry much about that test.It probably wasn't connected right or something.It could be somebody wanting a job for the shop, lying to you,it could be lots of things. Usually if a head gasket is blown the oil will be milky looking if its getting water in the oil. Head gaskets will blow easier than you think,but you will notice something usually like its missing or smoking,or something.The main thing is,keep an eye on the water level in the radiator.If its low all the time it could mean pressure is pushing it out somewhere.Of course in warmer weather and using it hard like flat out on the autobahn,it will use more water and oil than just normal driving.

I would of put some Bar's stop leak in it just for
insurance!