Date:         Sat, 23 Jul 2005 12:43:38 -0700
Reply-To:     roger sisler <rogersisler2000@YAHOO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         roger sisler <rogersisler2000@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      carbon monoxide leaking through the head gasket into the cooling
              system test.
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Head gasket leaks are a common problem in all vehicles as far as I can tell. And a serious one to boot. I  once followed a charity auction that sold about 1200 vehickes a week, and found that many , many were donated for this very reason.These gaskets can leak in several ways,  most of which can be detected real quick. If a gasket cracks where a coolent passage and oil passage meet, oil gets in the crankcase , or oil gets  in the radiarter. This result, and be easily verified.Chocolate milk for oil, or antifreeze. Brown foam on the underside of the oil filler cap,ect.A crack in the area of the piston and coolant passage will give you steam out the tail pipe  and an empty radiartor, quickly.How about a leak where exhaust goes into the radiator?Like a bad copper sealing  ring on a vanagon? I hear that an emissions probe that you put into the tail pipe to check carbon monoxide is stuck into the radiater to check this.                        .Here is an idea that may work for this test
 for us people that dont have this expesive equipment.Dont know if it will work , but dont see why not.Why not use a carbon monoxide tester that is used for a residential home.These are common,like smoke alarms .In fact, you may have one that is plugged into the wall right next to your smoke alarm.The one I used is 110 volts , so I plugged it into a  extention cord and stuck it up to my tail pipe. It has a didgital read out of 0-999 ppm CO. The read out climbed up to the max and the alarm to wake the dead went off . It worked in this gross CO test.I suggest putting this up to the radiater opening and testing for CO in the cooling system ,and a bad head gasket.I have never tried this, as I hope, and believe, that I dont have a vehicle that has this problem. If someone would try this, I think it would be real interesting. I think an empty 1 gallon milk jug would help. Duct tape the opening of the mlk jug to the radiater neck.Seal it real good. Cut the botton of the jug 3/4 of the way
 around and put the CO tester inside. Re duct tape this  bottom closed and plug the tester into the wall.I think you want  of the radiarter atmosphere leaking out the bottom  of the jug-just a bit.This to make sure the radiator atmosphere is inside the jug too. Start the engine and run it for about 10 minutes. Watch the didgital read out to see if CO is present. Perhaps the alarm will go off. I do not know how much CO it takes to indicate a bad head gasket.Maybe someone who knows these things can comment.I see this test as useful when checking out the condition of an unknown vehicle.A vehicle that you may be interested in purchacing.It is a quick and cheap and unobtrusive test. I think a bad leak here will show up as overheating,and this test will not be needed, but this test may pick up a gasket just starting to go bad.This is when you are wondering if you have a leaking coolant hose, or cracked radiater.The leak is small enough still to evade accurate diagnosis. Thanks for reading
 this long posting on such a nice a saturday,Roger







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