is my head gasket toast?

[kitcho]

Over the last 24 hours my car has been behaving very poorly.

Yesterday when I arrived at work I noted a strange smell. I popped my hood and noticed that a bit of coolant was seeping out around the pressure cap as well as out where the t-stat gasket is. the temperature was fine. Didn't think too much of it.

I replaced the pressure cap and drove home. on my way home my car began overheating so i had to stop my car and let it sit for 20 minutes to get the temps low enough to drive home (they never entered the red part on the gauge). When I got home, I noted that the exhaust was excessively white and had a weird smell to it. the coolant was boiling. After letting it cool, i pulled some coolant which seemed to look very dirty considering how recently I changed the coolant. Had a wierd brown tinge to it and there was less coolant there than there should of been.

any other possibilities?

 

[Barnes]

Brown in coolant pretty much means it's the HG. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[4Grim]

It really sounds like you have a headgasket that failed.

Don't keep driving the car though...don't want to warp the head.

Do a compression test.

 

[kitcho]

i only drove it twice yesterday but I won't be driving it anymore. made sure the temp stayed well below the red when i did.

i guess i should start looking around for someone to do a HG job for me, this is definitely out of my league.

thanks for the replies

 

you might be surprised on how easy a head gasket is to do. find a tech write up and go to town. dont be scared just follow the steps.

 

[HHIVR4]

Head removal isnt hard..Just takes a little time to remove everything in the way to get it off.I had mine off in about an hour and a half +/- with air tools.
Take your time and read up a little..Might as well get ARP head studs if you dont already have them.