cracked head? leaky head gasket? paranoia
 

found an open and empty coolant resevoir the other day, put in half a bottle of premix and saw it was bubbling through the tube. I assumed it was just burping itself but I found it empty today. It hasnt overheated and its running like normal. I havent pulled the oil out to completely check it yet but I checked the dipstick and didnt see anything OBVIOUS.

not an engine guru (yet). what are my chances? anyone replace a head gasket on a SOHC and tell me how much work it is? SOHCs prone to easily cracking heads? I will definitely be doing any repair myself and with a semi knowledgeable buddy.

D? where you at buddy? Bob rwenzig? john griggs? someone?

If you take off the oil cap and see white foam thats bad, not sure about heads cracking on the sohc but I know that the rear timing chain guide it prone to fail. I would try and rule out easy things first like check to see if there are any busted hoses or it there leaks near the water pump.

Ive noticed no coolant puddles and I am not even sure how long the resevoir has been empty. I will pull the oil cap right now to check, but I was probably going to drain the oil tonight to have a look and just use the same filter for now since I dont have a filter and I am curious how bad I am in.

Do you have a compression tool? Screws into a spark plug hole on the head and tells you the pressure inside each cylinder? If you have a wide range of pressures, something isn't right.

Pulling the oil is something else to do as well ( You mentioned it ).

Depends which head. Drivers side, 1 day task. Passengers side, your yanking the engine , mate. 2 day task for myself.

Prone to cracking heads.. not that I'm aware of on any N/A applications. The engine is made in Germany and to be honest.. it just sux to work on. ' Cant beat german engineering '.. Simplicity of a pushrod engine is so much easier and better to work on. You might receive a first hand experience at such.. Your going to walk down the street looking for anyone named Schmitt just to punch them in the face.

no compression tool. would I even care to get one after I pull the oil or will that tell me everything I need to know. I assume it will...

I am already planning on riding my bike for awhile and pulling the engine. If I am going to pull it I am going to look into doing some extra "fun" work. gotta try to make good out of the bad (if its bad)

im not looking forward to pulling the engine... at all. I think its a mess of an engine bay and I absolutely know it will be a royal pain in my ass.

Autozone sells them. Their not expensive at all. Good thing to have IMO.

The oil will tell the obvious, but I have seen coolant being burned without much of any making it into the oil.

Whats Colorados emissions laws like? Carbed 302 maybe?

Im DONE with the SOHC engine. Its just another piece of german garbage thats ' over engineered '. Going with all american pushrods myself.

Yep. 100% agreement from me there.

Completely off-topic but I'm sensing a hint of what the project with the clutch might entail.

Alright, thread hi-jack complete. Back to being productive members of R-F.

I will look into getting one anyway then.

well i am not sure how long this has been going on and I have been on 3 hr drives just a week or two prior to this discovery. I am going out to do the oil in a few minutes so Ill let you know.

no emissions in my town, but I am not sure I have the money for a motor swap and what it comes with, unless you have advice to make it very simple. if I could manage a carbed 302 and SOMEHOW reuse my tranny (at least for now), I would entertain that idea for sure. werent you saying something along the lines of a c4 matching up pretty close to the SOHC? I was thinking more of some simple things I could swing on the SOHC, but im listening...

luckily the weather is nice enough to ride the motorcycle around for a good couple months!

I encourage thread jacking, we're not in prison! jack on!

Does yor exhaust smell sweet at all like you are burning the coolant?

looks like there is a bit of coolant in the oil. it looks like a really small amount, I am not sure how to diagnose from here.

so from this point, do I absolutely not drive it? fill it up and check again with the new batch of oil? could my driveway flop over have caused this?

also is it worth it to maybe try and add a sealer? maybe the leak is small enough? I dunno...

Gildo, idk if this helps. But right before I got my frame repaired, my exhaust smelled "sweet" as mentioned above. My coolant reservoir was e-m-p-t-y. When my dad and I went to pick up the truck from the place that welded my frame, white smoke billowed out like a cabins' fireplace in the winter. I had a blown head gasket. It ran fine for a little. Then it felt like it was only on 5 cylinders. Then I eventually got it fixed, but......they are not fun to deal with. $1100 for my whole engine to be re-worked. Idk what the hell they did, but everything looked brand spankin new (Pretty sure they replaced/fixed everything in the bay). But hey, the engine is running strong as an Ox. I can't complain. Good luck with your dilemma!

I would do a compression test on each cylinder and then go from there. As for driving it I wouldn't.

thats an amazing quote dude....mind if i add that in my sig?

good luck with the troubles.

If you do a compression test you can find out which cylinder is leaking and you might be able to do just 1 head gasket if your looking to do it somewhat cheap. just make sure the heads not warped, if it is have it resurfaced at a machine shop, and you can buy 1 head gasket and a set of head bolts cause there torque to yield. my family owns a machine shop and we don't see many 4.0 SOHC come in, unless they get real hot so there is not many problems with them. hopefully it is a simple fix.

sure, dont care!


Ive never had it "overheat" but I guess I havent been superbly aware if it got to this point. I would venture to guess that it isnt warped but we'll see. for now I have to go get a compression tool and figure that out. I guess I have found out what I am doing this week at night and this weekend :ouch:

I will be doing all my own work, so I venture to guess that this will be cheap, just labor intensive. if I have to pull the engine, I will get a port on polish kit and do a little cleanup while I am in there, I think I need to replace a timing chain as well so if its pulled I might as well do that too (if I have the tools/ability)

hey also since we are on the subject of machine shop, If I made some cad drawings, could you give me some good deals on milling out some aluminum?

first off, did you pull the radiator cap and see how low it was? or just add to the reservoir?

mine on multiple occasions the reservoir has been DRY, for no reason what so ever. So I add to it and everything seems to be fine. My buddy same thing with his 4.0.

There is one place coolant can leak that is not a head gasket, its by the timming chain cover, almost ALL 4.0s leak there. My money is on that. NicksterSVT was telling me about it because I had a similar issue a while back and still kind of do. I thought I blew a head gasket as well. But I just kept driving it. Still Runs great.

Let me see if i can dig it up.

When my head gaskets were bad, it ran just fine, But it would over heat because of the exhaust leaking into the radiator, We checked that by watching bubbles in the radiator. I dont have the Sohc engine, I have the 4.0 pushrod engine, It was a 2 day job for me, but it wasn't too bad.

Ive thought about the timing issue as well but havent said much on it. The weird thing is that the truck still runs flawlessly, but I do have a check engine light. Im gonna do a compression test and that should tell me just about everything I need to know. thanks for the heads up beard. I havent pulled the radiator cap to see. it would be gorgeous if I had your situation. I was thinking about trying one of those sealers because like I said I have driven 3+ hours just a couple weeks prior and I doubt that it JUST went empty. I dunno. compression test will be my final word I think.

I never did a compression test because I was afraid of the results. I cant find the picture he sent me about the leaking point, but next time i catch him online I will ask.

Throwing in sealer you might as well try it, might fix the problem. But if your overflow tank is not bubbling at idle when it gets hot i doubt you have a blow head gasket.

well it was bubbling when I filled it last, but quite honestly, I was quite sure it is because there were air bubbles in the system and it was burping. it was bubbling before I turned the truck on to get a quicker flow and burp.

well id make sure the system is FULL, and the air is out, it will take a few times. then monitor it closely.

im going to do a compression test before I do anything else. I dont want to chance it cause it can still be cheap...