Head Gaskets

greyford1979 · Feb 26, 2017

This is what my truck started doing right after it started puking coolant. The vid was taken when the engine was at full operating temp when I got back from the store yesterday. It has never hazed like that before. I was hoping it would be as bad, thick white cloud like when I started it it up at the store. It's been super windy here, so it was hard to get a good vid.
https://youtu.be/_WbxHC65tkw

greyford1979 · Feb 28, 2017

Well, not sure at this point what else to check, short of pulling the heads lol. Should I just replace the injector cups at this point, leaning heavily towards them being my problem. Truck has 299,000 miles and on original cups. I planned on doing pushrods, valve springs, and valve seals this spring. Guess I could add the cups and go from there.

mikeeg02 · Feb 28, 2017

I think if it's the cups, the fluids mix. Unless one is cracked ? May be worth cleaning them out and thoroughly inspecting them. Hate to see you do all that work and have to pull the motor / heads anyways.

greyford1979 · Feb 28, 2017

mikeeg02 said:
I think if it's the cups, the fluids mix. Unless one is cracked ? May be worth cleaning them out and thoroughly inspecting them. Hate to see you do all that work and have to pull the motor / heads anyways.

I'm thinking #7 might be cracked just haven't seen any visual crack. That was the one the rag ended up having a coolant green tint to it when I soaked up the oil out of it. I drained the oil tonight, oil looked good so far. Wondering too if coolant was leaking into that cylinder, and that's where my haze is coming from? Just not leaking bad enough to wash the cylinder down and hydrolock the engine? It also stopped puking coolant, if head gaskets I would think it would keep puking coolant? The coolant made it all the way back to my skid plate while I was driving lol. Gonna have to clean everything real well now also. Looks like next wrong thing will be my oil pan. Damn thing went from looking good last oil change to not so good lol.

mikeeg02 · Feb 28, 2017

I think usually if a cup is leaking, the compression pushes it back. The valves should ever be closed in a position where theres vacuum pulling from the cup. I could be wrong though.

needen$77 · Feb 28, 2017

so not to derail but what the life of the cups

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greyford1979 · Feb 28, 2017

needen$77 said:
so not to derail but what the life of the cups

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I don't think I ever really seen anybody mention a life expectancy on them before. I know I found people on google searches that have had less miles than I do that had a cracked one.

TyCorr · Feb 28, 2017

Theres no number or data to be given on lifespan of the brass cups.

ghohouston · Feb 28, 2017

I've seen one 7.3 with like 120k have cracked cups, truck was absolutely babied by an old man, and was showroom clean, I've also seen several that were around 300k crack, etc. No rhyme or reason to it imo. Some never do it...

TyCorr · Feb 28, 2017

My 260s aint got a one cracked.

greyford1979 · Feb 28, 2017

As much as of a pain in the butt this is, I would prefer it to be a cup, rather than head/block issues. For the hell of it, I'm gonna check out the pistons with a borescope while I have the injectors and glow plugs out lol.

uncool · Mar 1, 2017

If you have the injectors out, Make sure the cooling system is full to the top, clean the injector cups/bores CLEAN! Plug in your block heater over night and come out the next day and see if you have coolant in the cups. The coolant will heat up the cups and expand them just enough for the coolant to seep out if they are bad/cracked.

greyford1979 · Mar 1, 2017

uncool said:
If you have the injectors out, Make sure the cooling system is full to the top, clean the injector cups/bores CLEAN! Plug in your block heater over night and come out the next day and see if you have coolant in the cups. The coolant will heat up the cups and expand them just enough for the coolant to seep out if they are bad/cracked.

It's full, I'll definitely try that. Thanks for the tip.

greyford1979 · Mar 5, 2017

Well I plugged in the truck. Driver's side head has coolant flowing though it, warm to the touch, no evidence of cups leaking. Pressurized the system with it plugged in, still nothing on driver's side. Passenger side, ice cold to the touch like there is no coolant flowing through the head while it's plugged in. Drained the oil, pressurized system, no coolant dripping from oil pan. So why is coolant not flowing through the driver's side head when it's plugged in? Guess I can pressurize each cylinder through the glow plug hole and see if it creates any pressure in the cooling system, and then crack it over by hand and see if the pressure increase or decreases at all.

Magnum PD · Mar 5, 2017

Sounds like a good idea

greyford1979 · Mar 11, 2017

Well I got around to pressurizing each cylinder today. Every one but #2 checked out fine. Soon as I hooked up air to it, you could hear the upper radiator hose gurgling and within a few seconds you could feel coolant. So there is obviously some air leaking out of that cylinder :doh:. Still no coolant in oil though. So is it safe to say head gaskets now?

Arisley · Mar 11, 2017

Betting so.

greyford1979 · Mar 11, 2017

Arisley said:
Betting so.

Yeah I soon as I heard it start gurgling when I hooked the air up to that one, I thought damn it, looks like I'll be ordering some head studs LOL. Now I'm just hoping that's all it is lol.

greyford1979 · Mar 11, 2017

If it is just head gaskets, do just the head gaskets and be done with it? I would of course do studs and send the heads out to a machine shop first. Rebuild with the miles? Try to find a lower mileage, good compression engine, stud it and put that in. Well that's if I could even find one for a decent price. They're pretty expensive around here for a used 7.3. That and most of them are high mileage for those prices lol.