Head Gasket or piston rings or what do you think?

  • #1

    Head Gasket or piston rings or what do you think?

    So i think I blew a head gasket. The car runs very rough now and billows white exhaust smoke. (not just a little white smoke a lot). I did a compression test:
    Dry
    1 - 110 2/70
    3 - 20 4/80
    5-70 6/120

    Then as the FSM says add some oil into each spark plug and retest
    Wet numbers significantly improved
    1/120 2/125
    3/20 4/100
    5/125 6/140

    This indicates to me that besides have a HG blow (causing the coolent to burn and create the white smoke) I might have warn piston rings.

    I have started disassembling the engine to change the HG. Thought I might see if there was scoring in the cylinders to indicate piston ring wear.

    Any thoughts?

    Should I just say fuck it and pull the engine and fix the piston rings? or pull everything off for a HG change and then judge from there?
  • #2
    man, if you're going to pull the engine, you might as well get in there and replace all you can. i made the mistake when my HG was leaking. replaced it and the main seals. all along I had worn valve seals and worn rings on #6 and was adding a quart of oil every week. so a few years later, ended up doing everything again, but this time I replaced the pistons, rings, valves, and every seal i could possibly get. it was a lot of unnecessary work that could've been addressed the first time. you can get a decent rebuild kit that won't break the bank. i got a nice set of oversize pistons from rockauto for less than 100 bucks. do what you feel is best.

    but if your car ran good before and didn't have any oil leaks or engine misses and had good compression prior to the HG blowing, it might be best to just replace the HG.... but all the work it takes to get to the darn thing.

    Go big or don't go at all.

    Bon