Puking coolant - blown head gasket?

ASSISTANCE Stock Engine-Bay Components
1

Yesterday after a long drive the wife’s DA started dripping coolant onto the floor. Upon further inspection, conclusions are the coolant is coming out of the reservoir due to what i see to be too much pressure. anything in there is boiling after driving.

Radiator had to be filled up as well.

Today, I decided to bleed the system since it’s easy enough. Upon starting the car with the rad cap off, once warmed up, the rad would begin puking coolant randomly. After searching I’ve come up with a blown head gasket. My question is, could it be ANYTHING ELSE?

2

check your oil cap to see if it a creamy white color to tell if your headgasket blew… mine is doing the same thing, puking coolant out and creamy white oil…

3

i agree. especially if you see coolant coming from inbetween the block and the head, especially around your timing belt area.:dance:

4

What kind of thermostat is in the car? mine did the same thing had a stant one in the car and replaced to a honda one. No more problems.

Al

5

Max, sorry to hear you’re having issues. I haven’t had your exact situation, but I would definitely do a lot of looking around and investigating before changing the head gasket. I don’t have a ton of experience, but I’ve never seen a bad head gasket on a b series motor, I’m pretty sure it’s extremely rare. I also just stumbled upon a post a day or two ago and Dan mentioned he had never seen an oem head gasket fail…

Definitely still a possibility that the head gasket is the problem, but I’d investigate every other avenue first.

I’d check the thermostat and water pump first.

6

I bet you $1 the thermostat is bad. The top radiator hose will be high pressure and stiff to the touch while the lower hose will be normal.

If that doesn’t fix it then try a pressure test. That will let you know if your water pump is going out.
You can get a loaner pressure test kit from numerous parts stores if you don’t want to fork over the cash for one. If you don’t see vapor from the tailpipe or anything in the oil then the head gasket is probably ok.

And yes, OEM B18 gaskets do fail. Its not rare, just not the most common thing to see go bad. I’ve blown out 2 myself.

good luck.

7

most likely thermostat aftermarket thermostat run at 180, hondas runs at 172, i had this problem before i recommend flushin the cooling system after u take the thermostat off and replace the rad cap and the thermo with a honda part.

8

THanks everyone, thanks colin for replying to I believe ALL of my recent threads.

I am hoping that itz not the head gasket…but a compression test yielded a very tired motor…but my motor oil is fine…

I’ll try the TS first and go from there I geuss.

9

Did you ever discover the problem?