head gasket failure

[whitehorse]

What would cause head gasket failure on a na truck? My truck has 255k and when you lift the hood it looks like a new engine... no leaks all the paint still on the engine. The truck has tons of new parts including a new water pump, thermostat, and new fan clutch. Would not flushing the coolant cause a hg failure? The older gentleman i bought it from was on top of maintenance.... hopefully I can find my sd card so I can upload some pics off of my phone.

 

[chris142]

the heating and cooling and expanding and contracting will eventully lead to a hg failure

 

[C_Luft]

How do you know it's the head gasket, did the previous owner ever say that they changed the oil cooler, if not I would change that first.

 

[ryanecvbrown]

Yep ^^^^ what he said. It's a "consumable" and they all fail with time, regardless of make or model. Mine went out around 250k. Common failure points are on the upper front corners (near the valley pan) and at the rear, just above the Ejacuation manifolds. Only takes a weekend if you're handy with a wrench and it's good to have a look inside the cyls to see what ya got goin in in there. Best of luck to ya!!

 

[ryanecvbrown]

**exhaust manifolds, not *********** manifolds. Imagine having to explain THAT to the parts counter guy! Dang autocorrect.

 

[whitehorse]

Yeah its the head gaskets cause when it heats up its blowing coolant bubbles out of the driver side head at the block. I thought the oil cooler would be the cause of oil and water mixing but he just replaced the o rings in it before I bought it....

 

[ToughOldFord]

**exhaust manifolds, not *********** manifolds. Imagine having to explain THAT to the parts counter guy! Dang autocorrect.

Or the parts counter girl.

 

[ryanecvbrown]

Or the parts counter girl.

That might be less awkward. She's pretty good lookin too

 

[4x4manonbroke]

These engine have weak head bolts and the new HG's are updated, the old ones usually leaked oil.. I also plan on doina a re-torque after I get the engine back in the truck just to ensure that all is tight ..

 

[whitehorse]

So there's a updated head gasket set? Maybe that's what might have happened to a good 7.3...maybe it had the old style set... o well... got a good 6.9 going in with arp studs and banks kit so maybe it wont happen again....

 

[Agnem]

Hang on now... head gasket failures on 6.9's usually result in an external coolant leak. Bubbles in the radiator, that could be anything from a cracked head to a cavitated cylinder to maybe a bad head gasket. More testing would be required. To identify the head and or cylinder, you are going to need to remove the glow plugs, and put shop air in each cylinder until you find your bubbles. Then, you will need to bring the pistons to TDC on each cylinder in turn on the suspect cylinders to see if it still bubbles or not. If it stops... then your pulling your engine. While caviation in 6.9's is rare, it can and does happen, especially when SCA's have been ignored in the cooling system.

 

[whitehorse]

I know when it was running it was bubbling between the head and block on the driver side. Last night I pulled the injectors and eww...the last injector on the driver side had some ugly mixing going on...water and oil all in the head... I'm pretty sure there wasn't any bubbles in the radiator when it was running a couple of days ago... I'm ready to get it out and tare it down and see what it is...