coolant reservoir not going down?

Unfortunately, my vote would be an HG or cracked head/ cylinder wall. One of those coolant system pressure testers should uncover your problem. Combined with a chemical block tester for confirmation.

 

You can do a chemical test on the coolant to see if there is exhaust gases in the coolant. Lots of times it will tell you right away if you have a head gasket issue.

 

oh man.

too many responses to try to respond to everyone and quote them. But thank you all for your suggestions. seriously.

It sounds like I have a HG issue but I will do a test later. I just checked, my coolant in the reservoir is still where itw as before, extra high. kinda fitting for 4/20. ;P

I like the suggestions for HG testing. I'll try and do the coolant check for exhaust gases, pull the plugs and inspect them for "cleaning", and run a compression test. I started with teh simple fixes. yah know. the kiss principle. and slowly moving my way up to the bigger things. Never had a head gasket issue on any of my vehicles. I suppose I had to start at some point. i won't be able to get to most of this till maybe tomorrow so please hold, if you're anticipating quick response on the thread.

 

Come to think of it. I did notice a few tiny bubbles in the coolant reservoir some time in the past few days. sounds like HG issues.

 

Yup, start of a head gasket. Just went through the same problem with a 4.0. Misfired/studdered one day, rough started the next morning after sitting, ran fine once warm and code cleared itself. Checked the plugs and one cylinder was steam cleaned.

 

i ran an 3.3 Nissan motor with the same issue for 10k miles. I blew through 2 radiators because the extra pressure. Stumble at idle, 1 very clean plug, missing coolant, and irratic temp gauge but never above 3/4 temp. If you are really desperate the HG fix in a can might be worth your time but i wouldnt consider it if you want to run the truck a long time.

 

yeah...Kinda similar symptoms. I'm goign to try and pull the plugs later this afternoon to check.

Yeah, I wanna try and run this car for a longer time. I wouldn't consider the fix-in-a-can solutions. Even though they're supposed to help for a few little bit.

 

It does when it fails and you continue to drive with a failed part.

 

the first indication that it didnt fail was the overflow reservoir was full. So it was letting out excess pressure in the coolant system

 

Well. I pulled cylinder 2 and 4's plugs. blown head gasket. oil on the plug and ignition boot.

cylinder 2. driver front plug and boot.::



cylinder 2 scope view:




cylinder 4 plug and boot::



cylidner 4 scope view:




Looks like i'm goign to need to repair this engine!

 

Hard to tell from the pics if stuff has been 'steam cleaned' enough to indicate a HG. Ill let other guys with more experience chime in.

Also the oily residue on the top side of the #2 plug and coil boot could just be a tiny amount of residue accumulated over time due to that plug not being quite tight enough. There have been other threads on here showing that

 

hard to see int he pictures, but the plug on the ignition side definitely has oil on it.

 

the white porcelain tells the whole story. it should have a darker tint to it..

*unless the plugs were recently replaced? How many miles on the plugs?

 

Well done.

 

I've seen oil on the boot from the spark plugs being a little loose. Saw pictures of that in a couple spark plug replacement threads but that #2 cylinder looks really wet for sure. Should be coolant not oil. Guess it really doesn't matter at this point. If you put a coolant system pressure tester on the radiator and pulled out the suspect plugs you would eventually see coolant building up in the combustion chamber(s) pretty fast.

 

You definitely have a spark plug tube seal leaking on your valve cover. That is the source of the oil on the boot and plug. I don't see anything that indicates a bad head gasket. You would need to do a compression test and leakdown to see if any compression is bleeding into the coolant system. Inversely, keep the plugs out and pressurize the coolant system to see if any coolant bleeds into the cylinder.

 

yeah. the plug was a little bit on the loose side so that is definitely odd.

I need to test the coolant. Gotta go get the chem testers and do a compression test on the cylinder. I've got some time tomorrow to do those tests so I will probably do that. To be fair, I also agree, i don't see any indication of coolant leaking into the cylinder but it could've been the opposite and just enough pressure ot not let coolant in. at any rate, there's too much oil in the cylinder. I could try tightening up the plugs and seeing if that fixes the issues but I'm not hopeful.

 

I think the extreme wetness on that piston head indicates something gave way and that "steam cleaned" porcelain electrode base so to 100% verify quickest way in the given state of disassembly the motor is in now is to just use a coolant pressure tester.

 

@ginseng27
Any updates?

 

SOOOOoo. after a ton of tryign different tests and stuff...I decided maybe the plug being loose is a give away of what's wrong. so I put in a new plug and a new boot and she started super smooth and stayed smooth. I drove around a little bit and she held just fine. the coolant temperatuers were happy and so was the reservoir levels. So I let it cool and things were still happy. So.....I think it was a loose plug.

I went ahead and took every plug off and looked in every cylinder afterwards. (the previously problematic cylinder that had oil in it is...clear. normal clean with some carbon on it, as expected). there was one more plug that was loose (cylinder 5) and it was...actually silver clean. like coolant had leaked in. so i'll be checking that cylinder later. maybe the loose plug resulted in some coolant leak. But that cylinder is really concerning.

I did a chemical coolant test for exhaust gases, no exhaust gases in coolant even after warm.

I tested the whole truck last 2 nights...some driving around, low rpm driving (where i had problems occur before), idling for like 30-60 min. temperatures never rose above 208. and in fact, dropped after barely touching 208.

I'll be keeping an eye on it all but i think it was just the loose plug.

Fun story if you've read this far, I totally dropped a bolt into the engine bay, in between the V banks...I saw it happen and i just sat there swearing up a storm as I was almost done putting things back togehter after checking all the cylinders. I couldn't see the bolt at all. I ran to the store and got a magnet and one of those extendable claws. I stuck the magnet down the area I saw it go down and just kept pushing down the hole till I felt it grab something, "*Gasp*, did I get it?!?!".....and i could hear angelic choirs as I saw it coming out of its resting place. I slowly pulled it out, careful not to bump it off. PHEW. lucky me. and then not 30 minutes later, I dropped the radiator cap into the engine bay. Luckily I could see it sitting there on top of the skid plate, I had the foresight to buy a claw. So I just reached down there and grabbed it. lol. Stressful day yesterday.