What are blown head gasket symptoms on a LS?

[Jesus A Rodriguez]

I'm low on coolant but showing no external leaks. I'm having some misfires when I hit 20mph, terrible fuel economy 11.5mpg, and within the last two weeks when I started the car it started shaking very hard. My friend said the shaking could be fuel injectors.

 

[joegr]

With rare exceptions, the head gaskets do not fail on the LS, almost never on the V8, and rarely on the V6.

Year? Engine? History?

Lots of people miss the signs of external coolant leaks because they have the expectation that they will see drops of coolant. Often, it is only a slight white residue that you will see where it is leaking.

 

[Jesus A Rodriguez]

04 v8 about to hit 80,000 miles

 

[joegr]

04 v8 about to hit 80,000 miles

Here's the fixes:

1. Replace all coils (use new OEM) and replace all spark plugs (at the same time). Must verify that plugs are set at 1.0mm (even if pre-gap'd)

2. Replace nearly all plastic cooling system parts (at the same time).
http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/forum/showthread.php?91092-GenII-LS8-Cooling-System-Overhaul
Bleed system exactly by this procedure
http://deneau.info/ls/s6x~us~en~file=s6x33004.htm~gen~ref.htm#extract_142

We've almost all had to do these two things at least once by now.

 

[2002_lincolnLS]

I gotta say in my time here I can't recall a thread about a bad head gasket, not say it hasn't happened, just not that I recall. I would say it is coils and your degas bottle or t stat housing. If you replace any, do it all.

 

[1LoudLS]

oh I remember plenty of threads about blown head gaskets...


and as far as I can remember, all of them turned out to be something else!

 

[tireman]

if it was a blown head gasket you will be seeing white smoke out the exhaust pipes and boiling antifreeze in the storage tank. you can get a test unit at autozone, it is a chemical test of the antifreeze, the unit is a loaner, you just need to buy the chemical $8. a cheap and worthwhile test.

 

[tireman]

running rough like that, follow joegr's advice, check for oil in the plug wells too.

 

[jjcool00]

if it was a blown head gasket you will be seeing white smoke out the exhaust pipes and boiling antifreeze in the storage tank. you can get a test unit at autozone, it is a chemical test of the antifreeze, the unit is a loaner, you just need to buy the chemical $8. a cheap and worthwhile test.

Easiest way to check is to check under the oil cap. If you have oil mixing with antifreeze you'll see what looks like a foam under the cap, instead of oil.

 

[elephantrider]

you'd have a chocolate milkshake if a head gasket was bad.

 

[stugots]

Easiest way to check is to check under the oil cap. If you have oil mixing with antifreeze you'll see what looks like a foam under the cap, instead of oil.

Not necessarily. I get foam under the cap occasionally. It's usually caused by my short commute.