Blowing Headgaskets!!!

[redseal199]

hey guys, i have an o4 6.0 with the full Banks kit. how do you know if have blown a gasket? i do not blow smoke or use coolant. Talk to dealer about trading and they told me mine was blown. I do not have any problems at all with my truck.

[mschn99]

generally the first thing that happens is you can see white residue around your degas bottle(coolant bottle). usually you dont get coolant into the cylender early in the failure.....eventually if the gasket is blown, you will start to get discolered coolant from more and more exhaust gas getting into the coolant, along with an occasional overheat. it will get progressivly worse. my suggestion would be to go to car quest or napa....get a "engine block tester" comanly called a head gasket tester. it is a blue fluid that you put in a container that has a bulb you hold on top of it.....sucking air out of the coolant to check for co2......go get your truck good and hot.....rod it a little, leave it running, take the cap off, put the tester over the bottle, and have someone slightly rev the moter, bout 1000 rpms over idle...then idle, then repeat, while you squeeze the bulb sucking the air through. if the fluid changes to whatever color it changes too(depending on whos kit it is), the gasket is probably blown. this doesnt eliminate the head gasket if it doesnt change color, and another cause of blowing coolant out the bottle is a bad EGR cooler.....so it is tough to explain all this on here....too much typing

[wapp11]

Take off the banks kit, take it to a different dealer, and you gasket won't be blown. You would know if it was blown... You will "puke" coolent all over the engine from the over flow. Put her on 6, run it to 100mph and if you don't smell anti-freeze (or pull over and pop the hood, very easy to tell) then your gasket(s) isn't blown. I have been through this deal a few times and blown up 2 radiators. actually have been running a blow gasket for 3 months now. I just don't get on it hard and it dosn't puke. debating on waiting for a 07' or studdin it.

[mschn99]

be carefull just "taking out the programming" because it does leave a code that you can not erase with your programmer. the companies can tell you whatever you want, but the memory it stores for PCM Memory Failure is a hard code that can only be cleared by the dealers equipment. also, headgaskets sometimes start off as just a mild residue, they dont always puke out right away......

[Ramsmoker]

You know I have heard that from a few peopleon here. The other side of the coin is I have friends that have lifted the heads off and had no problem getting warranty repair. Not me, but I have beat Ford up afterwords. We call streched head bolts lifting the heads.

[mschn99]

all depends on the dealer, some look for any reason to void a repair, others look for blaintant neglect or abuse, so things like your head gaskets may get repaired with no fuss. every dealer is different, and if you do a lot of business with the dealer they are more likely to take care of you.

[04FX4BEAST]

I have an 04 F350 that I've had for 3 months. I notice that when I punch it, with the air conditioning on, I can smell anti-freeze. I'm not losing any my overflow is always full.

Thoughts?