TexasHonda has most surely hit the nail on the head here. I've been experiencing the key indicator he just mentioned, a mysterious loss of coolant recently. Every three weeks or so have been checking it, finding it a little low, so then topping it back off, hoping the minor leakage/seepage was maybe an obscure loose clamp or hose connection something like that which I might look for later, but not wanting to face the possibility of a head gasket leak.

Because I just replaced the head gasket on the vehicle about a year ago I think it was. I had the cylinder head surface checked for warpage prior and none was found, it was well within spec. I torqued the head bolts properly and all, thought I did a thorough job. Ran good/great since, until this issue now. I suppose unless I change the head gasket all over again this issue will just continue to get worse, soon?

 

Given level of work/cost to repair head gasket, you want to be sure. I confirmed my problem by removing spark plugs and turning engine over. One cylinder sent a geyser of water spray out of open spark plug hole.

Another way to confirm would be to perform a cold coolant system pressure test. Loss of pressure w/o an observed leak, followed w/ above spark plug removed test should confirm if coolant is leaking by head gasket into cylinder.

good luck

 

I'll proceed with the two checks/testsTexasHonda just posted.
If coolant leaking into cylinder does indeed seem to be confirmed that way, how much longer can I put off the cylinder head gasket replacement until the car probably won't start anymore or worse? Hard to say?

 

Probably can drive for a while. I drove mine for at least a month or two before confirming head gasket leak. Miss only occurred on startup.

good luck

 

It's already been a month or two, or three or four, since we began encountering the (miss on startup) issue.

I'll be posting back with results of further checks/testing. Thanks.

 

I had a nissan truck that had a seeping head gasket, I tried this product and it does work,, you can get it most auto part stores,, follow the direction exactly,, truck was still running fine 2 yrs later when i sold it,,all i can say is it worked for me and at 10-12 bux a can it may be worth a try. good luck

 

I could at least consider it, thanks for the suggestion. How much "seeping" (amount of coolant per day/week or whatever) would you estimate your head gasket was seeping?

 

After reading a few user reviews of the product mentioned by woody31, just as I suspected it worked great (apparently) for a few, didn't work very well at all (for head gasket leaks), or or was too much trouble otherwise (one guy said he had to mess around flushing his cooling system 8 times and it still didn't work for him anyway).

Still gonna go ahead and perform a cold coolant system pressure test, and if loss of pressure w/o an observed leak will be following with spark plug removed test per TexasHonda advice. Soon as I get the chance.

 

<<<@!1!@>>>

Just asking for a confirmation here that performing a cooling system pressure test with a kit such as this one (because I can borrow a kit like this)
is the type of test that should indicate to me if I'm losing coolant into a combustion chamber (if loss of pressure w/o an observed leak as mentioned in quote above). I shouldn't need to conduct a compression test on the engine should I, to check for such?

 

This appears to be the correct tool. However some folks have found their test kit did not have the correct adapter for mating to the pressure cap fixture on the radiator. I ran into this problem w/ a Autozone pressure test kit.

I would look on compression test as an alternative if you can't run the cooling system pressure test.

Removing spark plugs on cold engine and turning over should also be performed. This is about as definitive as you can get for confirmation of head gasket leak.

good luck