Help with possible HG issue

[jfp3205]

It gets better and better each day. I thought i had a possible oil leak in my coolant but have no coolant in my oil that I can find so I was looking at possible oil cooler issue. I read on the thread about the rad pressure issue so I cahecked that today. When i lift the release on the rad cap, i hear pressure in my recovery tank. The truck runs fine and I do not see any white smoke. here are my questions.

1 How can I confirm for sure that I have a bad head gasket?
2 How long can i drive on a bad head gasket?
3 If I can ident which side is bad, can i just replace that side right now?
4 What kind of money should I expect to pay to fix this? 93 7.3 idi auto

Thanks for all the help

 

[Dieselcrawler]

Fill the rad to the bottom of the neck and with the cap off run the engine and look for bubbles. Oil in coolant is almost always a oil cooler issue. No way a hg can put oil in coolant as there are NO pressure galleys of oil threw it. Just the drain from the valve cover which flows with gravity back to the pan

 

[Agnem]

I agree with Corey. Now as for your radiator cap test, I don't know if your trying this hot or cold, but if your engine is hot and you lift the presure release, you are certainly going to get water going into the recovery tank. The test needs to be done from a cold engine that slowly warms up. Messing with a radiator cap on a hot engine is dangerous!

 

[jfp3205]

I did the test first thing this morning but i did not actually feel the rad to see if it was cold. It does the same thing when it is hot

 

[Dieselcrawler]

If the cap is bad it can hold a vaccum in the rad making it sound like it pressure. I have had a few that after sitting overnight it had a vacuum on the rad.

 

[Maverick1701]

also buy an exhaust gas tester off amazon or ebay. I payed $20? $25? for mine and napa/vatozone has the fluid.

If the fluid turns yellow then you have exhaust gasses in your coolant

It looks like this (yes this is my vid and yes I had a HG leak):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4_1Mv2dyAk

 

[RLDSL]

If you use a combustion gas detection kit, make sure to disconnect the CDR and block it off ( it can pickup blowby gasses in the intake via an intake gasket leak and give a false HG failure reading ), and then also make sure to stick a chunk of cardboard in front of the rad and have the engine up to and beyone thermostat opening temp to where you can see the coolant flowing in the rad and with the coolant level far enough below the neck on the rad so it doesnt draw up into the test tube and contaminate the fluid for a false positive. Run the test a bit longer than the instructions say to , on a diesel it takes a while longer for the fluid to react.