hard upper radiator hose but doesnt overheat

[2005DURAMAXER]

so im new to all this. i bought my first diesel ever about 2 weeks ago. its a 2005 duramax 3500 8inch lift on 38inch tires also has a edge juice with attitude, intake, egr delete, fuel lift pump and i think thats about it. 220k miles. ive researched this topic alot and everyone says if the upper radiator hose is hard after letting it set over night that its a bad head gasket. but everyone else that has this issue also over heats. my truck does not over heat. it stays at 180 unless im on it and making more than 10 psi boost then itll raise the temp to 210. and if i drive it easy and dont hit over 10 psi boost the temp comes back down to 180. and if i keep driving it hard the temp just stays at 210. it doesnt ever go higher than that... i do have to add coolant about once every 2 weeks also. so my question is, is this still a bad headgasket even tho it does not ever overheat? or is there another explaination for this excess pressure? o ya and just the other day i got underneath the hood and started squeezing hoses just to see and i found that the hose going into the heater core the inlet hose is hard going in but the other hose where it comes back out wasnt nearly as hard... i dont know if this could effect it either but my truck only blows hot air when its set to 90 anything from 60-89 and its cold air... thanks for any help. im sure this topic has been discuessed alot already but i just couldnt find anything where people had a hard upper hose but yet they werent overheating.

 

[2005DURAMAXER]

o ya and i do not have any white smoke coming out the exhaust either. today im going to do a coolant system flush and get one of those testers that test for exhaust gasses in the coolant. thanks again

 

[duckmans83]

You replace your overflow cap or research that?

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[JoshH]

Bad head gasket.

 

[2004LB7]

As Josh said. Bad gasket doesn't always mean overheating. If you have coolant and it's circulating properly, it shouldn't overheat. Even with a bad gasket. If it gets enough gasses in the exhaust to disturb the pump and flow then yes it may overheat.

 

[2005DURAMAXER]

damn.... i was hoping for something else... yes i did replace the cap tho.. how hard is it to do the head gaskets? i definitly wanna swap to arp head studs this time right?

 

[2005DURAMAXER]

the dude i bought the truck from had to know it also. because when i bought a new overflow cap, the bottom part was removed the part that releases the pressure when it gets to be to much. obviously he did it so there wouldnt be any pressure in the system... man i hate shady people... theres nothing i can do about it either since it was a private party sale either huh?

 

[2004LB7]

Not hard but takes time. Plan on sending your head(s) out to get checked/resurfaced. Unless you plan on running big power stock bolts are normally ok but no harm in putting studs in it.



Drilling a hole in the cap or gutting it has been done plenty of times to buy time before pulling the heads. As long as you aren't mixing fluid you should be fine. The big issue is the seller didn't inform you of the problem before the purchase. Unless you have some documents or contract stating the condition and known issues there is not much you can do

 

[2004LB7]

These two links may help

Advice for LLY Head Gasket replacement

I'll try to keep this short. I do a lot of work with addicts in recovery, and because of helping a family get their kid into rehab, they gave me this 2005 LLY for WAY less than it's worth. However, it does need to have the head gaskets replaced. The truck still ran with great power before I...

www.duramaxdiesels.com

Duramax Head Gasket Replacement: '04.5 LLY

Duramax Head Gasket Replacement: '04.5 LLY To figure out how to replace Duramax head gaskets the right way, we tagged along with Jason Carrier

www.dieselworldmag.com

 

[duckmans83]

You could reach out to the guy to see if he will give you some money back but he could just say no and piss you off more. Good luck!

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[NevadaLLY]

damn.... i was hoping for something else... yes i did replace the cap tho.. how hard is it to do the head gaskets? i definitly wanna swap to arp head studs this time right?

Head gaskets aren't tough as others said. Two ways to do it - pull the engine out (takes a few hours but makes the job a lot easier) or if you don't have the tools to remove, you can do it in the engine bay. I've done both ways. Make sure you either replace with the same gasket thickness you take out or just go to Grade C. C is the thickest for stock motors and doesn't require you to do any measurements/checking piston protrusions. If you match what came off, the math is done for you. If you're going to keep the truck, do head-studs. Just piece of mind IMHO. You won't always overheat. Mine didn't back in 2013 when I did my HG's and i haven't had a problem since with regard to HG's. If you don't do this kind of work often, just take your time, label everything, and lay things out directionally from how you took them out because you'll work backwards putting it back in.

 

[Dozerboy]

If you would have drove the shit out of it before buying it it would have blown coolant all over the place and you would have known. Might not be HGs still could be egr leak. I have heard of bad Tstats causing a hard hose too, but I'm not sure I buy that one.

 

[moparkxracer]

Sill not sure if dirty hooker is a vender on here. But they sell a cheaper set of head studs. Anyone here used them.

 

[ZeroGravity58]

I'm in the middle of a head gasket replacement on my 07. It's not a bad job just time consuming especially if nothing has ever been apart. I'd plan on also if your tearing it down to send out the injectors to get checked and you maybe want to upgrade or rebuild the turbo. At that point everything is easy to get to and you have to pull injectors anyways.

 

[mac2881994]

When my head gaskets went it never overheated. I would get a low coolant message every couple of weeks and that started to come back even sooner. I had the hard upper hose and my expansion tank slowly turned black from the exhaust soot mixed with the coolant. I did mine in the back yard without pulling the engine. It took me a couple of months due to traveling for work. Heads were sent to a local machine shop for flatness and crack checks. Went back together with ARP studs and grade C gaskets. It was a pretty easy job. I would suggest that you replace the water pump while you have it torn that far down. Nothing worse than getting it all the way back together to find out that the pump is bad.