Head or intake gasket.. Any guesses?

[96-1500-crew]

Early this year I got a crack in one of the plastic tanks on my radiator, and I repaired it with jb weld with intentions of getting a new one soon after, but never did. I was hauling a load of wood last week and I got the smell of antifreeze and the truck started to warm up so I pulled over and my jb weld fix had blown out, so I topped it off and drove home (never actually over heated) and went to the bone yard to get a used one. (I was wanting to wait to buy a aluminum tank one at tax time) put it in and ran it for a day and the truck forced a ton of water into the resivoir tank, got hot, and then the radiator cracked in the same spot as the last one, all at once... So I went to the parts store and bought a new one, put it in and that's where got bad. I've got bubbling coolant in the radiator, it's building up pressure (I'm guessing that's why the patch on my old one blew) and the starts burning the coolant. Now this all says head gasket to me except I'm getting steam out of both pipes (I have true duals) and that to me says intake. I'm not sure if a intake gasket can cause the bubbling and im not finding much searching, regardless I'm doing a compression test tomorrow before I start tearing it apart.

Now it just occurred to me that I did just fill the radiator with coolant, bubbles may be from air still trapped in the engine, I just still find it weird how it doesn't start blowing steam until the cooling system builds pressure


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[badazzbulldog]

did you run the truck with the cap off and let it get to operating temp and let the air bleed off?I always turn defrost on high and let it run and every few minutes squeeze the top hose to work the air out and add anti freeze as its needed till I see no bubbles and its flowing and have heat from the defroster.

 

[96-1500-crew]

Yea, heat came on when I got up to temp and the thermostat opened


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[96-1500-crew]

Well did a compression test and #6 was about 20psi lower than the rest, and #4 had coolant in the cylinder when I did the test. I also found that while cranking the engine to check the compression (fuel pump relay pulled to prevent starting) it built up a TON of pressure in the cooling system, so looks like a head gasket, or cracked head (I hope not), I'm tearing into it in the morning.


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