A guy I know is going through hell. He did his head gaskets, he has a 03 and he continues to over heat. He is getting bubbles in the expansion tank so he has a leak. Advice and help please...

 

I would tell him to pressure test tge system and monitor it for leaks. It's going somewhere. Hiws the oil look? Creamy? How's the exhasut smell? Sweet? Is there white smoke exhausting from the tail pipe?

Triage and report back.

 

Pressure test the system and try to see where the leak is coming from. Could be something other than head gasket

 

If bubbles in the tank - there is a chemical test for exhaust gas in coolant, about $50 at NAPA, will do maybe 15 tests. HG could be OK, but could be cracked block or head. Bubbles need to be purged no matter what the source, air in system does not cool as well as coolant with no bubbles.

 

You two posted damn near the same answer at the exact same time lol

 

thanks for all the advice. Silver I saw that as well...

 

What hose are the bubbles coming in from? When do they start right away or when the motor gets hot?

If bubbles are coming into the larger hose in the bottom my bet is he has a liner issue.

 

The autozone down the street from me has the test in their rent-a-tool program, and it's free. They don't even charge for the special fluid. I'm scared to try it on my D2 though.... my buddy used it on his 4runner.

 

You dont always get a positive from these test.

We have two different kinds of testers in the shop and sometimes we will get negative results and the gaskets or liner will still be bad.
The last one we did gave us a the results for a bad diesel head gasket in a gas 4.6.

 

Lol.

I don't think I've got any problems. I was tempted to run the test because it was free.... but I figured that since I don't think I have problems... I shouldn't try to prove myself wrong.