So been trying to diagnose if head gaskets are bad on my car. No water in oil and no smoke out tail pipes so hubby is pulling some spark plugs this morning. He's pulled 2 so far and they look brownish or oily looking. What are we looking for and are we specifically looking at the hook thing on the end or the threaded part or what? Also one of them looks like it needs replaced anyway so he was going to pull one off the wrecked car and noticed that the ends are bigger on the wrecked car. Does that mean they aren't usable on mine? I will go get some more for mine in a few days anyway but he was trying to put them back in as he took them out. Also it would help him in my opinion to get used to taking things off the wrecked car. He needs to understand its not going to be back on road

 

By ends you don't mean the screw in side but the ceramic side? The side that is outside of the engine can be longer since someone may have put what is called a cooler plug in. I wouldn't use used spark plugs if you can help it anyways. They are not very expensive unless you have no budget at all. Spark plugs first thing that need to be changed on a tune up. Be sure and gap them correctly.

 

No not the ceramic part. He had to use a bigger end on his socket wrench to go around the ones on the other car.

 

As long as the threaded part is the same size you are fine, but usually if it takes a bigger socket the threaded part is bigger also. What is the parts car?

You can look at this diagnose chart to see if your plugs look correct here.

Just pulling your plugs is not a very accurate way to try and tell if your head gasket is gone. You need to do either a compression test or a leak down test, with leak down testing being the more preferred method.

 

Well they are both 95 V6 3.4. Supposed to have been the same everything.

 

The plug in a cylinder with a blown head gasket will look cleaner then the rest. Assuming the car has been converted over to the green antifreeze it will have a green tint.

It is very easy to bump the "hook thing" and knock it out of alignment and out of gap. The plugs should be cleaned and have the gap checked before being reinstalled. With out the right swivel tools it is very easy to crack a plug while taking them out so be carful.

Remember your tube is your friend. Search Gapping or cleaning plugs if you have any question.

You know you doing this the hard way? You can borrow a Pressure tester from Autozone and test for a blown head gasket.

 

Yeah I know it's the hard way but we're at the house bored and autozone is a nice drive from me.

Is this what you're talking about OEM/Radiator and cap test kit (27065) | Cooling System Test Kit | AutoZone.com_

 

He may be talking about that , I was referencing this guage.

and this one
Leak down tester

You said you are not getting any smoke, are you losing anti-freeze somewhere? If you were losing anti-freeze then testing your cooling system is possible. It is possible to lose a head gasket and not be losing coolant.

 

Coolant loss is only symptom. I had this happen last year and it passed every test. Compression was fine and coolant system held pressure. Replaced rad cap and it has been normal (no added coolant) for over a yr. Just started loosing a month ago. Drove it yesterday for a bit and it didn't loose any. Not afraid of losing motor (well maybe what it may do and hope not in public) because we have another one like it that has already been rebuilt if I need it. Just the cost of the labor and it's gonna cost labor if it's HG anyway. If it's ok or just the cap again then I don't want to waste precious driving time. So far plugs aren't "clean looking or green" and I'm just gonna put new ones in it anyway since he's pulling them.

 

And I just realized my phone wrote "loose" instead of "lose" and I'm an editor freak and that bugs the **** out of me!