Blown Head Gasket

[Tigger03]

So I apparently have a blown head gasket in my 85 GL-10 Turbo. How hard is it to fix and what kind of costs am I looking at? Anybody have any ideas and is there anybody nearby that'd be willing to do it?

Thanks

[nipper]

blown head gasket or cracked head?

 

 

nipper

[Tigger03]

blown head gasket or cracked head?

 

 

nipper

 

I was told that it was a blown head gasket. its slowly leaking out and going down onto my exhaust which is causing it to smoke up on me.

[idosubaru]

common, probably passengers side right? it's not that hard to do, removing the turbo bits is the most annoying part to me. do it with the engine in the car and use air tools. with air tools your cam tower and head bolts come out and go in so much quicker and it's easier to do the job correctly (mainly - cleaning the head bolt holes). tons of information on here about EA headgaskets.

 

use Fel-Pro permatorque headgaskets and snug them about 5 pounds more than spec's, they do not need to be retorqued like the Subaru gaskets. well worth the savings in time, that is very common and trusted method for those of us that have done a lot of engine work. or..if you have someone else do it, make sure they use those headgaskets and explain why.

 

it's not a bad job, but it is time consuming. paying a few hundred dollars for a shop to do it would be annoying considering you can probably just go buy another one. the turbo's blow headgaskets fairly regularly by this age...the systems are getting old and heat kills headgaskets. having your turbo and cooling system in top condition helps avoid that. keep that in mind as you complete this job, that's one advantage to doing it yourself. a mechanic will replace the headgaskets and maybe a few other things, you can replace all of the hoses while you're in there.

[Tigger03]

common, probably passengers side right? it's not that hard to do, removing the turbo bits is the most annoying part to me. do it with the engine in the car and use air tools. with air tools your cam tower and head bolts come out and go in so much quicker and it's easier to do the job correctly (mainly - cleaning the head bolt holes). tons of information on here about EA headgaskets.

 

use Fel-Pro permatorque headgaskets and snug them about 5 pounds more than spec's, they do not need to be retorqued like the Subaru gaskets. well worth the savings in time, that is very common and trusted method for those of us that have done a lot of engine work. or..if you have someone else do it, make sure they use those headgaskets and explain why.

 

it's not a bad job, but it is time consuming. paying a few hundred dollars for a shop to do it would be annoying considering you can probably just go buy another one. the turbo's blow headgaskets fairly regularly by this age...the systems are getting old and heat kills headgaskets. having your turbo and cooling system in top condition helps avoid that. keep that in mind as you complete this job, that's one advantage to doing it yourself. a mechanic will replace the headgaskets and maybe a few other things, you can replace all of the hoses while you're in there.

Thanks for the information. I will definitely pass it along to whoever ends up working on it for me.

[trikerbob]

So I apparently have a blown head gasket in my 85 GL-10 Turbo. How hard is it to fix and what kind of costs am I looking at? Anybody have any ideas and is there anybody nearby that'd be willing to do it?

Thanks

 

Just thought I'd tell you what I just got through doing to my 85 1.8 non turbo motor thats in my Trike. I too thought I had blown head gaskets because I was dripping coolant out the exhause ports. About a qt per week. So I pulled the heads, pretty easy to do in my case because my motor is hanging off the back of a VW trans and has nothing in the way. Anyway, it was not gaskets. It was cracked heads. I didn't want to put a lot of money in it and the motor runs very well, so I just had the heads decked to clean them up and put them back on. Got it running and let it sit. Still leaked. This morning I added a bottle of Barrs Stop leak to the system and ran it at idle for about 20 min then drove it around for another 20 min and let it sit for 2 hours. It dripped about 4 drops. Then the wife took it out to the store and bank and parked it for another hour and so far, not a single drop has come out.

 

This may not be the best way to go, but in my case and for the way I use this motor, its working for me. If nothing else, this might buy you some time.

 

Bob

[Tigger03]

Just thought I'd tell you what I just got through doing to my 85 1.8 non turbo motor thats in my Trike. I too thought I had blown head gaskets because I was dripping coolant out the exhause ports. About a qt per week. So I pulled the heads, pretty easy to do in my case because my motor is hanging off the back of a VW trans and has nothing in the way. Anyway, it was not gaskets. It was cracked heads. I didn't want to put a lot of money in it and the motor runs very well, so I just had the heads decked to clean them up and put them back on. Got it running and let it sit. Still leaked. This morning I added a bottle of Barrs Stop leak to the system and ran it at idle for about 20 min then drove it around for another 20 min and let it sit for 2 hours. It dripped about 4 drops. Then the wife took it out to the store and bank and parked it for another hour and so far, not a single drop has come out.

 

This may not be the best way to go, but in my case and for the way I use this motor, its working for me. If nothing else, this might buy you some time.

 

Bob

Thanks for the info. I'll have to look more at it and see what exactly is going on.