I just had Comet in shop for inspection and it passed. It needed a cat installed (il6 250). It already had a leaky head gasket and valve cover before the shop got it. Now that the cat is installed it overheats within ten minutes of driving and it is leaking much more now. So I am gonna replace the gaskets anyway because I need to, but would the head gaskets cause the overheating, and did adding the hi-flow cat help cause it somehow??
Check the oil for water, and the water for oil. Also, run the engine with the radiator cap off, and smell the opening in the radiator. If it smells like combustion gas, or has bubbles in the water, it is probably a bad head gasket. Good luck!
The bad converter may have contributed the the failure of the head gasket initially. The new converter didnt cause it to get worse, it was allready going. Yes a bad head gasket will cause overheating. Check it out as stated above. Dont just slap the head back on when you do the gasket. Have it checked out by a reputable machine shop first. It may need the deck surface trued...valve guides/seals and/or a valve job. No sense having to remove it again to do these things later. Good luck!!!
Stupid question, but I've never had a blown head gasket before so..... Should the car be running really rough if the gasket is blown? Just want to be sure there isn't another problem too, or is this typical. Btw, I'm not driving it, I had to move it around the driveway and it ran super rough and I didn't want to run of for long, so I shut it down.
A blown head gasket could cause the running rough. Coolant bridging the spark plug gap, and/or a lack of compression on that hole would cause a misfire and coolant doesn't burn.(unless it's Ford Gold...)
when sitting, the cyl. could fill with water and lock the engine. or even worse, bend a rod if trying to start the engine with water in the cyl...
As you have gathered by now, this is serious! Don't use the car unless you have to! Also to add to this, since the newer head gaskets are much thicker than the original one ( steel ), it is recommended to have the head surfaced to take up for the thickness of the new gasket. This will be usually .020" - .025". This is to maintain your compression ratio. If you are getting coolant in the oil, I would recommend draining all the coolant, changing the oil and filter, and then run the engine for a few minutes to " flush " the coolant out of the bearings and lifters. Running the engine just a few minutes with no coolant won't hurt a thing, but leaving coolant ( antifreeze + water mix ) in the engine, will erode the bearings and cause corrosion on the camshaft and lifters! I would do this if you need the engine to sit more than a day or two.
