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Head Gasket??
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Posted by Dan91-9kt [Email] (more from Dan91-9kt) on Mon, 30 Jan 2006 13:38:14 Share Post by Email
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I would like some help to confirm whether the head gasket on my '91 9kt is definitely bad before tearing into it. Here are my symptoms: I am losing coolant through the overflow cap after normal driving. I lose about one inch of coolant in a week. I installed a new cap, but the coolant would still force its way out through the cap after the car was shut down. Apparently, the coolant system is reaching a higher operating pressure than it is intended to reach. My idle has an irregular miss and my boost doesn't hold as high as it once did. The car does not smoke after it reaches operating temperature, and I could not spot any oil in the coolant or any coolant in the oil. I plan to do a compression test this evening when I have some assistance.

To confirm my suspicions of a bad head gasket, I followed a recommendation from this BB of removing the overflow hose and inserting it into a container of water and watching for bubbles. A steady stream of bubbles would occur when I blipped the throttle. Bubbles would appear at an irregular basis when the car was idling.

Some other history on the car: The original headgasket was replaced at 65K when the timing chain broke. The car now has 161k. I have noticed lower, sustained-boost levels over the past months. I once sustained 20 lbs with my SD chips, but have been unable to sustain boost levels much beyond 16 for some time. I began to notice some minor, random coolant leaks that have grown over time and that seem to correspond with the lower level of boost. I am wondering if this leak began as a very slight leak that impacted my car's ability to sustain boost. I also am guessing that the HG leak has now reached the point of causing the cooling system to over-pressure and overflow. Am I on track with my thoughts?

Anyway, I would appreciate thoughts from any of you before I go any further with the head-gasket.
Thanks,
Dan

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