A healthy engine should get a pressure reading of over 100 psi in all cylinders. Install the gauge into the spark plug hole and see what pressure reading you get. You must remove the engine cover, which is easy, the ignition coils, and the spark plugs. To perform a compression test, you will need a compression test gauge. If you aren’t sure or don’t want to perform this test, you can perform a compression test. Perform Compressor testĪ combustion test kit should give you a good idea if the head gasket is blown. One of the cheapest ways to check if you have a blown head gasket is to use a combustion test kit. We want to be sure that you definitively have a blown head gasket. It could be that you have a stuck thermostat or the radiator cooling fans aren’t working. Perform a radiator coolant test.Įverything so far is leading you to believe that you have a blown head gasket. Your temperature should go past the middle mark, and you should not get the temperature to overheat symbol in the instrument cluster. If the engine overheats, turn it off and terminate this test. During this time, monitor the temperature on your instrument cluster. Start the car and run it idle for about twenty minutes. Give it a minute, and top off again with coolant. It will create excessive pressure in the cooling system and maybe even escape through the overflow tank.įill the radiator with coolant. Water has a boiling point of 100 Celsius, and once the engine reaches operating temperature, the water will want to turn into steam. Once the engine has cooled down, remove the radiator cap and add 50/50 antifreeze.ĭon’t add just water, as this would make diagnosing a blown head gasket problem even more difficult. Let’s say you followed the above steps and discovered that you have one or two of the symptoms. If the oil color is normal, continue to the next step to verify if you have a blown head gasket. If the oil is white instead of normal or dark, you may have a blown head gasket. Water and oil mixing under the oil cap don’t always mean the head gasket is blown. Due to condensation mixing with oil at the cap, vehicles that make short trips often have white oil under the oil. Check the oil via the dipstick and not by looking at the oil cap. If you check the oil, you will find that the oil is milky or white-looking in color. A blown head gasket allows coolant to mix with oil, causing the oil to look milky.That’s safer than removing the radiator cap when the engine is hot. Instead, you can use caution, remove the overflow reservoir cap, and check for bubbles. If the engine is hot, don’t remove the radiator cap, or you will get burned by the hot coolant. You will notice bubbles if you remove the radiator cap (only at startup, never when the engine is hot).Therefore, if you are adding coolant constantly, there is a good chance that you have a blown head gasket. When the head gasket fails, it will allow the coolant to escape once the engine gets hot.Just like a blown head gasket can cause overheating, overheating can also blow your head gasket. The engine won’t cool down if there is no more coolant. This causes the coolant to leak into the combustion chamber or mix with oil. The engine’s heat can get so high that it melts the head gasket, deforms the cylinder head, and can also cause a crack in the engine block. A blown head gasket can cause overheating. Common signs that you have a blown head gasket include: Engine overheating
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