Quote:
Originally Posted by silicon212
You don't need one. Just look at the coolant - if it's cloudy, or there is any oil, or if there is any exhaust smell, then a head gasket is suspect. Run the engine with the cap off for a while, just let it idle for about 2-3 minutes. If, near the end of the run, you see bubbles in the coolant, this is another symptom.
The tool you are referring to is a specific gravity checker and those are used to determine proper blend of coolant (amount of antifreeze vs. water).
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I looked for bubbles but i didn't let the engine run long enough (because i didn't know what i was suppose to do at the time really), but i'll try again tomorrow. BUT i did do a compression test and got surprising results!!!
Facing the front of the car, the right side of the engine had considerably less compression than the hole left side (Bad head gasket on this side???). And this is the side that i took the valve cover off in my video. I left the paper i wrote the results on in my car and its too late to go out now so i'll post the exact results in the morning. But anyway, on my gauge under the PSI it has a band of red which turns to green (representing good and bad compression). None of the cylinders on the right side left the red band, they got very close though, but the range was from 95-105 PSI if i can remember correctly. On the left side of the engine, those cylinders ranged from about 125-145. I'm no mechanic but i don't think thats normal. So as i said could this be a bad (or worse) head gasket on one side? I'm still very confused as to what the problem is, i guess i have to take apart the engine to find out at this point.
And one more thing, the inside of the plastic coolant container was sort of lined with this white to grayish black foamy stuff, i also found some of this white foamy stuff inside the rad cap but i think thats just chunks of corrosion, the inside rim of the rad cap was also oily but i think its from the rubber seal from the cap? Coolant has never been changed at least for 10 years so maybe its normal to be dirty like this.