First of all, I hope everyone had a lovely holiday, whether you celebrated the Passover or Easter or magician David Blaine’s birthday or whatever. Personally, I celebrated in two ways: I continued to refrain from eating anything leavened because I wanted to remember that it would have been deeply, richly crappy to be forced to build big dumb statues of some Pharaoh, and I took a trip with my kid into some lovely parts of Virginia. In my 1989 Ford F-150 that, about a week ago, couldn’t drive for more than 10 minutes without producing so much steam it made the view out the windshield look like a 1940s noir detective film.
You may recall my last wrenching update, where I made a little bit of progress on my Citroën 2CV and took a big step backward with my F-150 when I was an idiot and used a breaker bar to tighten a nut on the truck’s leaky thermostat housing after I changed the gasket. Of course, it cracked, and I was geysering coolant from there.
So, I replaced it! That’s a whole new thermostat housing you see there, a new gasket, and the cooling system has been flushed and everything! It doesn’t leak anymore!
So that part’s great. The part that isn’t so great is that the head gasket and head are clearly borked, from an unfortunate overheating event that happened when my water pump died a while back. So even with the cooling system being intact, I’m still sort of screwed, in a big, expensive way.
Or am I?
I mean, I definitely am, but maybe there’s a way around, you know, doing the right thing. See, I needed to use the truck within the next couple of days, and at the moment, I lack the money/time/will/skills to do a proper head job on this engine, so I was on the verge of despair. But then I remembered hearing vague stories about a magical elixir that could do the job of skilled mechanics, just via the magic of a blue liquid!
Yes, a blue liquid, just like menstrual fluid or baby urine!
I’d never used any of these head gasket sealers before, so I got one with the evocative name Blue Devil and the excitingly bold promise of a “permanent repair,” which feels almost amoral. I’m not being paid by these indigo demon people, by the way, I just looked up these fluids and found some good reviews and figured, what the hell, I don’t really have anything to lose?
I always feel a little odd about liquids that claim to replace whole, genuine specialists, like Liquid Plumr or Janitor in a Drum or Liquid Lawyer, but I can’t reject something so potentially convenient just because it seems strange.
These fluids work because they have sodium silicate or some other similar “liquid glass” in them that flows through the cooling system and, when subjected to the heat and pressure at the point where there’s a leak between the cylinder head and the block, it flows in there and solidifies, forming a hard seal.
There are stories of people using this stuff and getting 10,000 miles or more out of the engine. And it seems that big, overbuilt, relatively simple engines like my 4.9-liter/300 cubic inch inline-six are ideal candidates for this magic goop. So I tried it.
And holy crap, it seemed to work! I took a shortish test run in the truck, but long enough where it normally would be pumping steam into the aether, and it didn’t overheat! It ran…basically fine? I had just enough confidence to try a two-and-a-half-hour trip, because why not? Life is for taking inane risks, right?
Other than a fun time with my kid, the point of the trip was to haul a new refrigerator to my friend’s mountain place, then go visit some other friends who also have access to a mountain place nearby. How do I know so many people with houses in the Virginia mountains isn’t clear, but whatever, it’s lovely country.
Since my truck is now mobile again and I needed the whole bed clean, I raked out months of pine needles and leaves and probably shredded documents from the squirrel community.
My cat Tomato offered precisely zero useful assistance, but remained to supervise my efforts, which I think he judged sub-par.
I did end up getting the bed cleared of detrius, and fridge-ready!
Incredibly, the truck made it! It was slow to start after one short pit stop, but other than that, it was pretty hassle-free? I took it easy on it, never rev’d above about 3000 RPM, but it was able to maintain 55-65 mph, no trouble.
It idles a bit rough, and there’s a bumpy spot between about 2000-2600 RPM that suddenly smooths out for reasons I don’t understand yet, but overall? It works.
I drove it to my friends’ place next, where we enjoyed some lovely and damp times with them and their family, interacting with cattle, and I offered to haul a bunch of trash from their property that had been languishing for a long time, because, you know, I drank their booze and ate their food and I should probably repay in some way.
Besides, what’s the point of having a truck if you can’t cram it full of crap? Oh, and I had my other friend’s old fridge in there anyway, so it’s not like I wasn’t going to take a trip to the dump as it was.
Mostly, I’m amazed at how well the truck did; the differences between doing a full head job and pouring some blue liquid in the radiator are vast, and it really feels like cheating that this worked as well as it worked. I read reviews and watched videos, yet somehow retained a bit of skepticism. But so far – knock on wood, spit thrice, all that – it seems to have, if not solved, at least managed the head gasket issue.
There was one concerning thing, though: when I finally got back home and parked by my house, I saw steam from the engine; I was fearful that I’d see it coming from the head gasket, but that wasn’t the case. It was much more exciting:
It was spraying from the overflow/pressure relief nozzle under the radiator cap. I’d never seen this happen before. It continued for maybe a minute or so, then petered out. It didn’t do this any of the other times I drove it for similar lengths of time and then stopped, so I’m sort of baffled. It started and ran fine a couple of hours after this, too.
I’ll check the coolant level and see if I can see anything odd in there. I also checked the oil cap and didn’t see any Forbidden Mayonnaise, which happens when coolant and oil mix:
So, at this point, I’m not sure that was. The fact that I avoided a major repair with a liquid makes me think that there must be some consequences to pay, but as far as I’m concerned, this magic juice made my truck operational and proved itself on a not-insignificant trial run, so I’m just going to take this strange victory and enjoy a functional truck.
Even if it required a deal with the (blue) devil.
All photos by the author
It’s great to see The Marshal moving again, even if it does feel like a bit of a Passover/Easter miracle that may not make it through the next 40 days and 40 nights.
I don’t know why I find these posts about your adventures with this truck so entertaining, but I do. I like seeing the old truck doing truck things. Keep them coming when ever you have them. Also, Happy Passover.
While I’m glad the blue fluid “worked” as a stop-gap, it’s not a lasting repair.
You need to drain your coolant system and maybe give it a proper flush in concert with the head gasket job.
If the “magic” sealer did in fact plug up a leak, that means there’s a better-than-good chance it’s going to also cause a blockage elsewhere. Maybe in the head, maybe the radiator, maybe the water pump, maybe your heater core. Regardless it’s bad and not designed for it. Hopefully you can remove what’s left of it with just a flush, but I suspect you’ve contaminated your entire cooling system, and may need to do some teardown to unclog where it’s settled, and possibly replace some components.
“Stop-leak” products are for desperate emergency situations only, because if they might possibly work, the chances of them causing more damage is high, but less high than not driving it without the hopeful bodge.
Looks like no function on the temp gauge, bad sender? With the coolant leaks “fixed” so no steam escapes, now how will you know if it overheats?
yeah, I noticed that, too. it WAS working last week. I may have broken something.
Oy, back to the family “farm” for more wrenching.
Some Magic Blue Liquid goes in, 2.5hrs. later it dispenses cappuccino !Truly the work of the Devil !
I don’t miss the “make do” years of youth.
Typical cat behavior, I’m afraid. All supervisor, no skill. And some bite. And a lot of judgement.
Mine is more of the, I’ll scream at you until you sit down so I can curl up in your lap. She requires HOURS of lap time per day, it’s a terrible way to live. /S
My old guy was like that. He had needs damnit, and had a relentless case of heavychin (in which a peet is laid across my wrist, and his head on top of that), my need to type be damned. He’d sit there and screm his dumb scremsong until I scooped him up.
I got a tattoo of his peetprint in that spot after he passed.
🙁 poor little guy just needed to love you. I just had to lock mine out of the office because I can’t cuddle and work at the same time. I do take a forced lunch break on the couch so she can get her snuggles in though.
If I’m inside mine doesn’t care what I’m doing but if I’m outside he supervises and insists on getting the middle of absolutely everything.
I mean if head gasket in a can is good enough for Roadkill, it’s certainly good enough for all of us!
Just don’t bother to look into what happened to those cars after the episode was done. …….
Hey, don’t knock Liquid Lawyer. It organized all the lawsuits against me into one class action.
I have seen magic fluids accumulate on the radiator cap and prop it open, causing it to no longer seal. This may or may not be the underlying cause of your new leak.
And I agree that the small radiator fitting usually connects to the overflow tank. If you don’t have an overflow tank, you can at least add a hose so the spray aims toward the ground instead of the engine.
Back in my youth, it was K&W Block Seal. I rescued several Pontiac V8’s with that stuff. It’s not a pour it in and go, there’s a process, and it worked great!
My neighbor asked me if I would use my truck to go pick up a couch for her, and she was really hesitant to ask. I was like, I would LOVE to! That’s what truck people DO!
First thing: great cat.
Second thing: “Yes, a blue liquid, just like menstrual fluid or baby urine!” It’s all realistic colours on UK TV now, I thought we were fine with pretending it was all some kind of science project, but no, it has to be the right colours.
Third thing: I used oiltyte stick to seal up a leaky diff housing once, and it worked fine for seven years on the welded diff on my drift car. I was too scared to change the seal because that would have involved inspecting the welded gears, and I didn’t trust the previous owner at all by this point. But also I’d have then had to do it properly and I definitely couldn’t afford that. So, in summary, sometimes it works out fine to try a bodge and just hope it’s all OK.
I’ve been told that when you lay a refrigerator on it’s side you that, you should let it stand for at least 24 hours after delivery so that all the coolant can settle back into the area for the compressor to pump. Otherwise, the compressor might get damaged. And good luck on the blue repair job!
I’m a K Seal man myself
Given some of the heaps people on this site own, I’m betting there’s more than a few of us with a preferred brand of “mechanic in a can”.
K Seal FTW!
We were on at least year 4 of a K-Seal head gasket repair in my wife’s ’95 Ford Escort that seems to have just let go again a few days ago. To quote the Project Farm guy: “Highly Impressive!”
What are “farm use” license plates? I have seen plates that list agricultural, which I understand to mean can be driven locally from field to field, but generally not allowed on main roads as they do meet full safety requirements.
let’s just all be cool about that
Think of it like Montana plates for city people. Its fine.
I am in SWVA. Last year we ‘did away’ with them, but you can get permanent farm vehicle plates from the DMV. Still got pulled over a couple times because the five oh didn’t know the new rules. At least now with a DMV-issues plate I look WAY less suspicious on the interstate.
I once drove to Morganton, NC on the old farm use plates. So I think your trip and mine cancel each other out.
You get them from the Liquid Lawyer. He flushes DMV rules down the drain!
Isn’t that port on the radiator neck supposed to be connected to the overflow tank?
Because once you shut off the truck, it continues to get heat up – and without a water pump circulating the coolant, it gets hotter. Hot things (including liquid) expand, and the radiator cap pressure relief spring dumps the pressurized fluid.
Typically, this pressure dump doesn’t direct at the intake manifold and accessory belts.
Yeah, that felt odd to me, too. It really seems like it should be going to the overflow tank. I’ll look into that.
I Was going to point this out too, the overflow/expansion tank should be capturing all of this. Looks like your hose, at least has left the chat.
Also might be worthwhile to change the oil, just in case you got coolant into the crankcase while your head gasket was leaky.
How am I supposed to know the vehicle is overheating if coolant isn’t spraying everywhere?
For the record, my favorite DC Comics superhero in the 80s was Blue Devil.
https://www.syfy.com/sites/syfy/files/2020/08/blue-devil-1-cover.jpg