tarpymac

how can you tell if you a blown gasket just by looking at the engine?

Monty

I Dont know how by just looking at the engine....but i know some otha ways

Start the car and go look at the tailpipes.(have someone rev it). If coolant gets spit out. That sucka is blown. Or U could look at you coolant and oil. To see if they are mixing.

Jugador

white smoke will generally signify a blowed head gasket. if it's bad enough, the engine bay will be smoking and uhh...stuff

stonemonk9

ya, white smoke out of the exhaust pipe

mdvaldosta

The "quick" way to tell is to check the oil to see if coolant is mixing with it, evidenced by a milkshake type color. Then pop off the radiator cap and rev up the car and look for air bubbles to come up. If either of those two things happen then the headgasket is blown. Even if its not mixing fluids, you may be leaking compression, so a compression test is in order. Just go to a parts store and get a compression tester, screw it into the spark plug port with all the other plugs loose, the ignition and fuel disabled (pull the fuse / relay), and the throttle plate open and turn the car over 4 or 5 times. You should be pulling 180 lbs or so compression on all cylinders, with all the same compression amount with only around 5 lbs of pressure difference between all the cylinders. If a cylinder is more than 15 lbs less than the rest of them then its likely you have a blown headgasket.