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Old 02-15-2010, 11:06 PM
Desert Dog Desert Dog is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: 29 Palms, CA
Posts: 27
Forget all the coolant testing and compression testing. Ask a shop to do a coolant system pressure test. It's simple to do and will tell you immediately if you have a compromised coolant system. You can DIY this if you have the tool. The tool consists of a special coolant tank cap with a short hose connected to a smallish bicycle type hand pump and a pressure guage. You fill the system, install the tester cap and pump up the pressure to about 15 PSI and wait several minutes to see if the pressure drops. No drop in pressure means no problem. A drop in pressure means there is a leak and it's up to you to figure out where the water/coolant is going. A head gasket leak will usually end up in one or two cylinders and will show as steam coming from the tailpipe after the test. Do this on a cool engine NOT running. You can sometimes hear the leak if it's bad enough.
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