Ok so my brother went out a little while ago to race my other freind. Both of them 95z28 6-speeds. They come back home and walk in and the other friend tells me "your bro blew a head gasket". So i go out there and they have it parked in the driveway and there is as noticable coolant smell and there is some coolant under the car on the driveway. I did notice that alot of coolant had come from the coolant reservoir tube and it didnt look like it was coming from the head. My friend was driving behind him and said he thought the smoke was coming from the passenger side tail pipe but it may have just been burning off the exhuast. My brother drove it home about 5 miles with the temp guage BURIED!!!! There doesnt look to be coolant in the oil so we know thast a good sign. What can we do to check and what is your guys' opinions on this??? Thanks alot, Dustin.

 

A lot of times if you blow a head gasket, it will force compression into the water jacket and force the coolant out of the resevoir. There might not be any coming out from between the head and block. If he drove it that long with temps that high, you very well have warped heads now. They are prone to warping when temps get high. When it cools down, take the radiator cap off and fill the radiator with water. Start the car and see if water instantly comes back out of the radiator. If so that is probably what it is.

 

If coolant was leaking into the cumbustion chamber then wouldnt it run like crap? He said on the way home that it didnt miss or anything.

 

you would think, but not nescessarily. I had both of mine blown one time and it ran great. It idled fine and ran fine. It would just overheat once i got going down the road. It wouldn't overheat at idle.

 

Well i popped the radiator cap off and the coolant was definently brown like it had oil in it, is that a good possibility? Also we filled the radiator to the top and he started it and it emediately started bubbling and rose up but didnt over flow bc it was going into the reservoir. You would think that the coolant would go down instead of up bc he lost alot, but it didnt it started rising.

 

Id drain the oil to see if it looked brown indicating coolant in the oil.

 

if the engine was cool when you started it back up, you definately have a blown head gasket. The compression from the engine is going right to the radiator. The brown water might just be that you haven't flushed it in awhile (maybe you have flushed it recently i don't know). Pull your dipstick out and check the oil. If it looks like a choclate milk shake, you have water in the oil. You may not have any water in the oil or oil in the radiator with a blown gasket. Hope not because that is a lot more work. You already have enough on your hands. Be sure to take those heads to a machine shop and have them checked.

 

My bro just bought the car about a week and a half ago. The kid that had it before him supposedly only had the car for about 500 miles after buying it from an older guy. The kid said he just had the water pump changed on it so i would think the coolant should still be clean. Would u be able to just lay a straight edge across the head to check for warpage??

 

Nope i drove my Cavalier around with a blown headgasket/it really depends on how bad it is, whether or not it will run like crap. I am sure he wasn't going WOT home

Far as i see, pull the heads and replace both gaskets....get them checked out for warpage, maybe throw some new valves in if they are bad....there is nothing to do other than that.

I just re-read it anyone else see this:

sounds like the kid knew something was wrong and wanted to get rid of it, IMO Sounds like she was running hot so he checked the thermostat and replaced the water pump, when in all reality it was a leaking head-gasket.

 

That wold be because of the air that got in the system.

 

There were no signs of it running hot or any smell or anything. My brother has gotten on it a few times since he had it so i dont think it was like that when he got it. The car has about 135k miles on so I am not really suprised that this happend.

 

He could have run it hot before he put the new pump on it--usually you don't just say--"hey i need a water pump"--there must have been a problem with it. Not that it really matters anyway. A lot of people just drive there car--they don't look at anything, trust me i have a sister ran the car 305 91 firebird at 220 with no coolant--my brother now drives and it has white smoke If that tells you anything. You'd never know it had a leaking headgasket if you just hoped in and drove it either

Good Luck

 

hey man i just am in the process of replacing my head gaskets its a pain in the ***....i kno how to do it just takes alot of time....as for finding out if it is the head gasket turn ur car on and rev it up for alittle in neutral have someone put there hand behind the exhaust tip and then smell ur hand see if it smells of coolant if it does its def the gasket. The job isnt too bad shops are goin to charge u $1500 at the very least to do it..... if u have some mechanical knowledge u can do it ur self let me kno ill give u intructions and all peace

 

I definatly thought it was a head gasket from the moment I saw the white cloud form out the tail-pipe. Shot coolant all over the front end of my car!

 

This is the guy that was driving behind my brother when it happend.