The other night I was driving and the temp gauge shot through the roof. I managed to get to were I work and popped the hood.. Steam was coming from the radiator cap and the collant tank cap.. So I opened it up, and what tiny put of coolant that was in the tank was boiling. I added a gallon of coolant/water and it sucked it all up.. Then I check my oil and found it.. My dad says it's "probably" just a head gasket. Does this sound right? Am I up sh*t creek? Never really replaced a head gasket before, is it hard? long process? I'm seriously thinking of selling this hunk of expensive scrap metal this crap keeps up..

 

sounds like a head gasket....I have never done a head gasket replacement....neverhad too but alot of people on this board have....I am sure someone will pop up with mroe information.

 

before you do anything.....do a compression check....all cylinders should be within 5 % of one another....if there is a major difference between any two cylinders....yep blown head gasket....if they all check out ok.....check you intake. I thought my head gasket was blown untill I did a comp check and turns out one of the bolts that goes into the water jacket of the head isn't sealed propperly....thus coolant in the oil. It sounds though....I'm sorry to say....if you lost that much coolant that fast...it is a blown head gasket (any white smoke out the exhaust?) and head gaskets are a pain in the ***.

 

When I put in the cam in my engine, my dad and I also decided to have the heads rebuilt. It wasn't such a hard deal, and if you're not sending the heads out to get rebuilt the job can be done in a day with the right tools. But, if the problem is in your head gasket, and you're gonna have the engine half apart anyway, what better time is there to upgrade?? With the heads off you've already taken out the pushrods... a cam swap would be easy. It's also a perfect time to rebuild your heads, possibly upgrade intake manifolds... good luck either way

 

well its either the intake or the head gasket, and since to pull a head gasket youve gota pull the intake anyways, you might as well do the compression check and figure out what u gota do. yeah thats it... its not that big a pain in the ***. a head swap only took me about 7-8 hours... but i didnt know what i was doin...

 

If you replace one head gasket you should also do the other... I think the thickness of the gasket might offset the compression differences between cylinder banks. Plus why risk having to do the job twice when you're already 3/4 way there?

 

Yeah, I'm going to start on pulling the heads later today. But unfortunately I think I'm going to sell the T/A. It just isn't working out for me. I have 2 jobs, one I commute an average of 130 miles a day round trip.. then on nights and weekends I deliver pizza. I put like almost 3000 miles on month on it, and it's just too hard on it. I wish I had the time/money it takes to restore it, but I'm just going to get it runnable and sell it... I'm going to miss it though. Somewhere down the road though I want to get another third gen. Prolly an 89 IROC.. dunno why, I just have my heart set on one

 

ya and CHANGE THE OIL ASAP i forgot to mention coolant will EAT your BEARINGS ALIVE sitting in your crank case... guaranteed!