Head gasket, Cracked block?

[BurbanAZ]

Hey guys, ive read through this forum for a while and had a question so i finally joined up. Hopefully ill be able to get some good info from u guys and contribute also. I have a question though. I have a 1994 k2500 Suburban with a 6.5td and im worried i might have either a block head gasket or cracked block or something from what people have said. The only issue i have is that i was loosing a little coolant sometimes and it holds pressure in the cooling system. It doesnt built pressure in the system really fast, doesnt smoke, doesnt overheat, runs and pull great and has no other issues. The engine has 205k, i do alot of offroading and long trips into the middle or no where so i need it to be reliable. Its been great so far i just worry about the cooling pressure issue. Im trying to decide if i should pull the hwole thing apart and change the head gaskets and hope nothing else is wrong, or replace the engine with like a teds take out, or just leave it if its going to last a while. What do u guys think?

[rapidoxidationman]

I drove across the country and back last summer with these same symptoms on my '05 d-max. Eventually it started to use more and more coolant as the cracked head gasket got worse and I had to dig in and change the head gaskets in January. Keep some antifreeze with you and when the consumption gets excessive (a gallon every couple of days was getting blown out the overflow tube through the expansion tank cap when I called it) then start tearing things down...

Your radiator /expansion tank cap will keep the pressure down, but maybe not enough to not blow the seal on your water pump shaft.

Want reliable? Do it now. Like to gamble, possibly costing extra in the end (a new water pump)? Wait 'til it breaks.

[BurbanAZ]

Dang lol, yea thats kind of what i figured. I just worry that im going to go through the work of tearing it down and find a cracked block and end up having to switch the whole engine out anyway. Guess there isnt a way around it, thanks for the advise

[sctrailrider]

The easy way to see if maybe you have a HG is to remove the t-stat and crank the motor and look in the crossover and see if any bubbles start coming up into the water crossover, if you do see bubbles, it will tell you what side of the motor has the bad gasket..

The cooling system will have some pressure in it due to the cap, some pressure isn't bad, lots fast is.....