Cracked head????

Okay, so I finished up my head gasket swap. Everything is fine and running. All of the problems have been taken care of as you can see my other threads. HOWEVER, my car still overheats. It only overheats during long pulls like 2nd-4th or highway cruising. The car will cool down very quickly though when I let off the gas or even take it out of gear and let it drift. This is exactly what it did before. My compression checks out great and the oil and coolant are fine. I really doubt my headgasket has a problem seeings how I just replaced it and there are no sypmtoms of a blown HG. I bought a new thermostat, drained and replaced the coolant and the oil. I was thinking about getting a coolant flush done. As of now I am going to bet that my head is cracked or warped. Any thing I can do to see if it is really warped or cracked other than removing the head and pressure checking it? Could something else be causing this overheating problem?

On a side note my stock head came today from gstclips and it looks great! I am taking it to the shop sometime this week to start the slow long build process. If my head on the car is cracked it is really not that big of a deal because the new head will be done in about 3 months or so and I can take it easy on the car for now. If this overheating problem is something else though I would love to fix it. Thanks for any help.

you didnt get the head shaved or anything before you put it back on?

Okay, so I finished up my head gasket swap. Everything is fine and running. All of the problems have been taken care of as you can see my other threads. HOWEVER, my car still overheats. It only overheats during long pulls like 2nd-4th or highway cruising. The car will cool down very quickly though when I let off the gas or even take it out of gear and let it drift. This is exactly what it did before. My compression checks out great and the oil and coolant are fine. I really doubt my headgasket has a problem seeings how I just replaced it and there are no sypmtoms of a blown HG. I bought a new thermostat, drained and replaced the coolant and the oil. I was thinking about getting a coolant flush done. As of now I am going to bet that my head is cracked or warped. Any thing I can do to see if it is really warped or cracked other than removing the head and pressure checking it? Could something else be causing this overheating problem?

On a side note my stock head came today from gstclips and it looks great! I am taking it to the shop sometime this week to start the slow long build process. If my head on the car is cracked it is really not that big of a deal because the new head will be done in about 3 months or so and I can take it easy on the car for now. If this overheating problem is something else though I would love to fix it. Thanks for any help.


It would be best to run a block check head gasket chemical test on it and see if it is getting any exhaust in the coolant.
Most good repair shops can run the test and it takes the gueese work out of it.
Here is the tool they use.
http://tools.batauto.com/index.php?crn=223&rn=1086&action=show_detail
MT

Yeah a buddy of mine told me about the chemical tester he has. I might try to borrow it from him one day this week and test it. Thanks guys.

Yeah a buddy of mine told me about the chemical tester he has. I might try to borrow it from him one day this week and test it. Thanks guys.

Good if you have a buddy that has one.
They are a little trickie to use.
But the take the guess work out of head gasket/head leak or not.
If the test fluid turns yellow you have exhaust leaking into coolant system.
There should be instructions with tester.
You need to get your coolant level down some so you do not suck the coolant into tester.
If you do dump te test fluid out of tester and put new in.
Also test when engine is good an hot.
Indication of head gasket leakage is heating up fast on a load.
And a bad leak will block heater heat flow as it blocks coolant flow and causes a fast heat up.
Good luck on your testing and let us know how it goes.
MT