Your vehicle can overheat and breakdown because of an antifreeze leak. The overheating warps the engine parts and in turn ruins the head gaskets. Those gaskets can be replaced if there are no heat cracks in the cylinder heads or major engine damage.
There are three tests to determine a leaking gasket and/or a crack. The Cooling-Heating Test, CO Gas Test and a Dye Test. If they show a bad gasket or cracked head, we must remove the top and middle portion of the engine and have the machine shop test the heads.
Engine work is expensive, time consuming and very technical. Engines have 3 basic sections.
- The Top...It contains the intake manifold and the fuel injectors.
- The Middle...It contains the cylinder head, valves and cam.
- The Bottom...It contains the block, crank, pistons and oil pan.
The machine shop will clean the cylinder, do a leak test, measure the surface warp and machine it if necessary. Sometimes the valves are burnt and need replaced or machined and other times the head must be replaced because of a crack.
We must replace the head gaskets and test for the original leak that caused the head gasket problem. The anti freeze leak repair will be extra.
We will give you an estimate for the machine shop, but it won't be accurate until we get their report.