Head Gaskets

greyford1979

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About what does it generally cost for having a headgasket job done on a 7.3. Not sure yet if this is my issue, haven't done any testing yet as I'm at work, but I may have blown a head gasket. Puking coolant out of the over flow tank. I can get all the parts through work since I get a discount, and ofc I would do head studs if headgaskets are my issue. Just don't know if I really feel like doing it myself. What a horrible feeling I had in my stomach when I heard the coolant puking when I shut my truck off lol. It looks like it's puking right out the cap and blowing out the weep hole in the back of the over flow tank.
 

greyford1979

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Can't really do anything at the moment, but I at least tried to see if the overflow tank cap was bad, noticed it was making a weird noise so I tried my brother's cap. His stopped the noise, but it's still puking coolant just casually driving around the block. Only time it's not pushing coolant is when it's idling. Drives just fine, no over heating issues either.
 

greyford1979

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Well I drove it to work today, I cleaned all the coolant up last night to check if it pushes coolant again. Everything was dry this morning, but about half way to work I noticed I had no heat, blowing cols air. Thermostat problem? Temp stays normal once the engine is at operating temps.
 

mikeeg02

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Thermostat is obviously easier and cheaper than the head gaskets to try. I'd also take the belt off and see how much play is in your water pump. How many miles on the setup? Head gaskets aren't a common issue on a 7.3, but not impossible. What for fuel and turbo are on the truck ?
 

greyford1979

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Truck is just shy of 299,000 miles. Yeah I've been doing a lot of research and haven't found much on head gasket issues on the 7.3 engines. I'm only running 160/30 injectors and a KC38R turbo. Not real hard on the truck, never even really get it too much into the 30s for boost psi. Really got me wondering this morning about the tstat this morning since I had no heat.
 

greyford1979

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I've never done it in the 5 years I've had, not sure if the previous owner ever did. When I bought it the truck had pretty much original parts on it.
 

mikeeg02

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Start with the thermostat, you should probably also get a billet adapter, I know I need to replace mine. And while your in there, pull the belt and check for play on the water pump shaft.
 

greyford1979

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Thanks for the advice. That's along the lines of where I was thinking of starting. Also the guys here at the body shop have some testers that I can pressure test the system with. It was actually kind of a relief when it didn't puke any coolant this morning and I had no heat lol.
 

greyford1979

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Well drove it home, no puking again. Had a bit of heat then got colder. It still had a lot of excessive pressure in the overflow tank before I drove it home after sitting all day.
 

greyford1979

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Well I don't even have to put a thermostat in it to know that's not the only problem. After work it started hard. On the drive home, no puking, but half way home I stopped at a stop sign, and I noticed a whitish blue cloud from the tail pipe. Went away once I accelerated. Got home, shut it off, turned it back on and the whitish blue cloud was back, and the haze wouldn't go away. Didn't really smell like much, noticed it didn't burn the eyes as much as before the haze. Checked coolant, noticed what looks like specks of oil. Smelled the coolant, doesn't smell like any diesel in there. Pulled the dip stick, doesn't look like any coolant in the oil. Also no coolant smell from the oil.
 

greyford1979

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Could it be bad injector cups even though no fuel in the coolant? Could the over pressurizing of the cooling system have cause my oil cooler orings to fail and allow oil into the cooling system? Truck hasn't lost any power since all this has started happening. Started the truck again, started right up but did have the haze again after a few mins. I found a thread after searching google where someone had almost the same issues as mine except for no oil in the coolant. Said his was pressurizing the cooling system, had the intermittent heat/no heat and puking cooling issues. Ended up having 3 bad injector cups. This would definitely be better than headgasket, or block/head problems lol.
 

mikeeg02

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I cant say as I know that for sure. I cant believe nobody more intelligent than myself on the subject has chimed in yet.
 

greyford1979

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Yeah and I don't wanna just start throwing parts at it lol. Also don't wanna take it to a shop or dealer that ends up misdiagnosing it.
 

greyford1979

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Well didn't drive it today, don't wanna really screw something up. Probably gonna take the injectors out this weekend and see if I can see any leaks in the injector cups after putting the cooling system under pressure with a cooling system tester and go from there. Hoping this is all that's wrong.
 

greyford1979

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Unfortunately yesterday I had to drive the truck to go pick something up, only about a 15 min drive from my house. Didn't puke any coolant and drove fine. Was only in the store about 10 min, turn the truck back on and it was blowing a thick white cloud of smoke. Truck really didn't cool down at all and was at full operating temp when I got to the store. White smoke cleared up up about a min later once I started driving. Tore it down today, when I wiped out the injectors cups, the rag from cylinder 7 looked like it had some coolant on iy along with the oil, it definitely had a bright green tint to it. I put the cooling system under pressure with my pressure tester, but couldn't see any coolant leaking into the injector cups. The pressure also slowly leaks down.
 
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