The radiator should be full to the top. Looks like your coolant is going somewhere and I bet you now know where that is.

 

ok........ so what causes this.. ****in blown head gasket?

 

Very good chance...

I'd put my money on that.

 

What are other symptoms of a blown head gasket???

 

Well I've been lucky enough to have never experience a blown head gasket.

But if you're seeing white smoke comming out of your exhaust.. then you are burning coolant/antifreeze etc.

And if you are burning it, there isn't many other ways coolant can get into the combustion chamber other than via a blown head gasket.

I'm sure there are other things that would cause the same problem.. but a very common culpret is the head gasket.

I'm sorry I can't be of much more help than that.. I simply just don't know. But I'm sure someone else will be able to chime in. You're certainly not the first to have this happen

 

Poor Chris, you're basically going through what happened to me last year (or earlier this year - i forget). The easiet way to see if you have a blown head gasket is to run the car with the radiator cap off (make sure you fill the radiator) and if the return has bubbles coming out of it, you definately have a blown headgasket. By the time I got mine fixed, my car was consuming about 1-1/2 gallons every 80 miles and it was a small leak!

If you do in fact have a blown head gasket, you can determine which side is blown by taking the valve covers off. Look on the underside and you will see a green tint (since you don't have dexcool anymore, it won't be orange). To make it easier to see, place both valve covers side by side and it should be apparent (although harder to see than orange).