Driving with blown head gasket?

[alexgalexg]

Hi everyone, I bought a 98xj with a blown head gasket and I don't want to pay $70 to tow it 5 minutes down the road. It's the usual head gasket problems, runs rough, probably won't idle... the question is can I drive it five mins down the road to my house without ruining it? Once it's home I can slap on a new gasket before ever starting it again.

 

[dan1977p]

Yep.

 

[alexgalexg]

Okay, the guy I bought it from said after the gasket blew he started driving twards the auto shop. On his way it got worse and eventually totally died on him and was towed to the shop. Yesterday I started it for like 30 seconds and I had to keep my foot on the gas and sounded like it was running on liquor. So I suspect that a large amount of coolant getting into the cylinder heads. Iso it really going to be okay for the 5 min drive?

 

[dan1977p]

With the new info, probably not. Blown means a lot of things to a lot of people. People put these things through all kinds of hell and they survive but I also have access to folks with tow straps who would happily drag me home an hour away if asked so if you can manage the same, drag it. If you have the gasket already and think thats the only issue, you could always just change it right there, button it up, drive it home and then do the tear down.

 

[alexgalexg]

Thanks for the advice, I won't drive it. If anything I'll try to drag it with my 99xj but I doubt the shop will allow me to fix the 98 in the shop parking lot

 

[Ecomike]

Depends on what part of the head gasket is blown, and why. My son drove his ford taurus for a year and way over 10,000 miles with a bad head gasket and hairline cracks on the cast iron head. Put about 80,000 more miles on it, now about 260,000 miles and the engine runs like brand new.

Drove and tested my 89 I bought for weeks convinced the problem was not the head gasket, Turned out was, blown between two adjacent cylinders, ran like a bat out oh hell but idled like crap. Compression test confirmed the bad basket. They are easy to do. You can also check the oil, and coolant for signs of head gasket leaks there, and pull spark plugs and examine the plug ends versus the color charts on line to see if there are signs of fluid leaks into the combustion chamber

I do not trust what others tell me, I run my own inspection and tests.

How did he know it was head gasket???

"Okay, the guy I bought it from said after the gasket blew he started driving twards the auto shop."

 

[alexgalexg]

The shop he took it to said it was the head. However I did some fiddling to see if I could find what caused the hopefuplynjust gasket to go. This car since new has always been maintained by shops... so basically a quick death. The coolant probably has never been changed and the plugs have to be 6 years old. I think the cause of the blow was the coolant.

 

[PhotoJared]

I personally wouldn't drive it if its that bad. Coolant doesn't compress and you dont want to (possibly) throw a rod.

 

[Ecomike]

My money is on bad muffler bearings.

 

[Ecomike]

I personally wouldn't drive it if its that bad. Coolant doesn't compress and you don't want to (possibly) throw a rod.

While I agree, I have heard zero test data from the OP other than hearsay, as to what is truly known about the condition of the engine.

 

[dan1977p]

Based on another thread, I think it's home anyway. I get the impression this is his first foray into auto mechanics so I'm happy to give a little leeway in giving the right information without a lot of coaching.