Hi Folks,

New member here. Not a techy. I'm told my 95 Camaro may have a blown head gasket. It's running quite rough, blows a lot of white smoke out the exhaust, has a strong smell of gas when running. Any other tips on how to diagnose whether it is a head gasket or not? What kind of cost would I be looking at to have someone do that job? Would not bring to a dealer, but a local shop where the guy has done work for me before and seems very reasonable. Are we talking $500 bucks? Less than that? Thanks for the help

 

That is deffinatly the head gasket. It blows out white smoke because coolant is getting into the engine and burning and evaporating, causing the smoke and the smell. As for price, I know it's ussually pretty expensive, and a blown head gasket ussually leads to other problems. If I were you I would go to autozone or Orreilly's and buy a couple bottles of block sealer and put it in. Run it for a while to the point where you can't tell about the head gasket, and trade it in or sell it.

 

Thanks. I was afraid of that. I've tried the block sealer actually. Didn't seem to make any difference. I've read good and bad things about those products. Some say they work well, others say not. Maybe I'll try it again. Or...just try to sell it as is - maybe someone who wants to work on it or put a little money into it will buy it.