Head Gasket or Injector tube seal replacement

[Boatracer69r]

I also posted this on the repair forum, but I wanted to post it in the Northwest section too, since this is where I live (South Eastern Washington)
Thank you in advance for your help.

Hello everyone, I have a 02 GMC Duramax with roughly 175k miles. Last year my truck was blowing smoke so bad that I got pulled over and given a warning by the police. I took my truck to a shop and had the injectors replaced with Bosch injectors. About a week after getting the injectors replaced I was driving to Seattle, WA (I live in eastern Washington) about 3.5 hours from my house pulling a fairly small trailer. About 1 hour on road my low coolant light came on. This has never happened before, so I pulled into Walmart and bought a couple of jugs of antifreeze. I topped it back off and got about 5 miles down the road and the light came on again. I decided to just watch the gauge to see if it was getting hot, but the temp never changed. After that I kept driving it, the temp never got warm, so I would just top it off every once in a while. Now back in April I was driving a heaver trailer back from California and it started smoking really bad. I pulled over there was water in the oil. At that point I just had my truck towed back home where is has sat since then.

My question is, and I’m sure I’ll get 10 different responses, but is it a head gasket replacement or is the injector tube seals that let go? I’ve called around and to replace the head gaskets is going to cost roughly 5k, while everyone said resealing the injector tube is significantly less. I asked the shop about this and they said they use the actual tools to remove all that stuff when replacing the injectors, not just a crowbar and a 2x4. My questions are this…..do I need to replace the head gaskets or just a reseal on the injector tubes? My other question is, are there any mechanics in I’ll say the Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho) that could do this job right and not bend me over at $5k to fix it. Sorry for the long story but I wanted to get all the information in to limit the amount of questions.

Yes, unfortunately that is a dodge that had to pull me home. I love my truck to death and just want her fixed so I can drive her again.

 

[IOWA LLY]

Since it happened shortly after the injector job it's more then likely the injector cups. Which is a lot cheaper and easier then head gaskets.

Unfortunately, there is no sure fire way that I know of to differentiate between injector cups, or head gaskets. So if you opt to just do injector cups and it ends up being the head gaskets your out even more money in the end......

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[DAVe3283]

If you have a good shop you can trust, you can have them do the cups, then before they reassemble the engine, pressure test the cooling system. If it passes, it was the cups. If it still leaks, then it is a head gasket, and you're halfway there, so it should save some money.

 

[IOWA LLY]

Dave, have you had much luck finding blown headgaskets with a pressure test? I haven't. All the ones I've diagnosed wouldn't leak pressure off while sitting. But would purge air and coolant out the tank from combustion pressure pushing past the headgaskets. Just my experience for what it's worth.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

 

[catman3126]

I also posted this on the repair forum, but I wanted to post it in the Northwest section too, since this is where I live (South Eastern Washington)
Thank you in advance for your help.

Hello everyone, I have a 02 GMC Duramax with roughly 175k miles. Last year my truck was blowing smoke so bad that I got pulled over and given a warning by the police. I took my truck to a shop and had the injectors replaced with Bosch injectors. About a week after getting the injectors replaced I was driving to Seattle, WA (I live in eastern Washington) about 3.5 hours from my house pulling a fairly small trailer. About 1 hour on road my low coolant light came on. This has never happened before, so I pulled into Walmart and bought a couple of jugs of antifreeze. I topped it back off and got about 5 miles down the road and the light came on again. I decided to just watch the gauge to see if it was getting hot, but the temp never changed. After that I kept driving it, the temp never got warm, so I would just top it off every once in a while. Now back in April I was driving a heaver trailer back from California and it started smoking really bad. I pulled over there was water in the oil. At that point I just had my truck towed back home where is has sat since then.

My question is, and I’m sure I’ll get 10 different responses, but is it a head gasket replacement or is the injector tube seals that let go? I’ve called around and to replace the head gaskets is going to cost roughly 5k, while everyone said resealing the injector tube is significantly less. I asked the shop about this and they said they use the actual tools to remove all that stuff when replacing the injectors, not just a crowbar and a 2x4. My questions are this…..do I need to replace the head gaskets or just a reseal on the injector tubes? My other question is, are there any mechanics in I’ll say the Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho) that could do this job right and not bend me over at $5k to fix it. Sorry for the long story but I wanted to get all the information in to limit the amount of questions.

Yes, unfortunately that is a dodge that had to pull me home. I love my truck to death and just want her fixed so I can drive her again.

What town do you live in? close to tri cities maybe? I'm donw in Hermiston Oregon and work on a lot of duramax's in the area if you need some help getting this repaired correctly. hit me up if I can help.

 

[Burn Down]

Dave, have you had much luck finding blown headgaskets with a pressure test? I haven't. All the ones I've diagnosed wouldn't leak pressure off while sitting. But would purge air and coolant out the tank from combustion pressure pushing past the headgaskets. Just my experience for what it's worth.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

This is what I have seen as well... My head gaskets split at the fire ring on 2 and 6 in the 7-8 o'clock position. It has been super intermittent for pushing coolant and having a hard hose for sometime. Passed the pressure test no problem.

Op, did the shop that did the injectors pull the cups and reseal them? Warranty maybe?

 

[DAVe3283]

I've (luckily) never blown a head gasket, so I can't speak from experience. I suppose you could pressurize the coolant as-is and see if it leaks down. If so, check the cups and re-check leakdown. If cups fixed the leak, that was probably the problem. If not, probably head gaskets.

I'd talk to the shop that did the injectors since this started shortly after injectors. I think that cups are more likely than a head gasket given the timing; also LB7s aren't known to blow head gaskets with stock tuning (not that they can't, just doesn't seem to happen much).

I do all my labor myself, so I can't really recommend a good shop. If it was me, I would pull the injectors and see if any of the cups are loose. If not, removing the heads isn't actually that much more work, IMO. And I should know, I've swapped out heads twice now, and about to do it again (appears I got another cracked head).

 

[Boatracer69r]

What town do you live in? close to tri cities maybe? I'm donw in Hermiston Oregon and work on a lot of duramax's in the area if you need some help getting this repaired correctly. hit me up if I can help.

I live in Pasco, I'll pm you. Thank you!

 

[catman3126]

I live in Pasco, I'll pm you. Thank you!

Right on. I get a lot of customer out of tri cities. 541-263-0311 call or text also.

 

[Boatracer69r]

Thank you for everyone's help and advise. I'm going to talk to the the shop that did my injectors and see if they will at least recheck the tubes. If not then maybe I can find a shop to check those first before tearing it down to head gaskets. I'm gas engine smart, but a diesel idiot which I hate.

 

[catman3126]

I've (luckily) never blown a head gasket, so I can't speak from experience. I suppose you could pressurize the coolant as-is and see if it leaks down. If so, check the cups and re-check leakdown. If cups fixed the leak, that was probably the problem. If not, probably head gaskets.

I'd talk to the shop that did the injectors since this started shortly after injectors. I think that cups are more likely than a head gasket given the timing; also LB7s aren't known to blow head gaskets with stock tuning (not that they can't, just doesn't seem to happen much).

I do all my labor myself, so I can't really recommend a good shop. If it was me, I would pull the injectors and see if any of the cups are loose. If not, removing the heads isn't actually that much more work, IMO. And I should know, I've swapped out heads twice now, and about to do it again (appears I got another cracked head).

A good way to tell if it is the cups is to take all the glow plugs out, pressure up the cooling system and leave it for several hours and then crank it over and see if any coolant comes out. even at that it could still be the head gasket too. I did 3 sets of LB7 head gaskets last summer and all were blown on one cylinder on both sides. all three of these and one LLY in the last year I was able to fire it up with the cap off and watch down in the coolant tank and after a minute or two the level began to rise and then burped out a big pocket of gas and then went down and started to rise again.

 

[catman3126]

Thank you for everyone's help and advise. I'm going to talk to the the shop that did my injectors and see if they will at least recheck the tubes. If not then maybe I can find a shop to check those first before tearing it down to head gaskets. I'm gas engine smart, but a diesel idiot which I hate.

Who did your injectors?