Just went with no real notice, except for a brief lumpy idle for about 30 seconds on Thursday. Driving it back home from grocery shopping Friday morning, and it started to rattle under load. I didn't know for sure what it was, but sounded like spark knock, so I knew if I babied it I'd get it home ( I live in a rurual area, breakdowns take ages to sort out).
So got it home, compression 35psi on 1 and 2. Phew! At least it wasn't rod knock!
At least this one was an obious failure. Looking at the gasket and machined surfaces, the gasket was a ticking time bomb, all cylinders had distress between each other on the fire rings, and number 1 had obviously been ingesting a little coolant for a little while, it's so clean. There was no real evidence of coolant use either.
I think my new policy is going to be change head gaskets on any old car I buy from now on, this is my second head gasket change in 5 months! At least this one is easy to do.


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Yah I would say it was leaking slowly for sometime.