Yeah the plate expands and who tries to seal a damn gasket between steel and aluminum? Now I've got head gasket issues I think. Could be a stick valve. This morning it was making this clacking sound coming from the top end when I cranked it up on a cold start. Also at around 2 am every night when I'm out driving it likes to make a plume of white steam out the exhaust and run extremely rough.

 

The truck uses about a gallon of antifreeze a week depending on how I drive. No oil in the coolant and no water in the oil. I'm stumped.

 

Run a compression test on all cylinders with spark plugs removed, ignition disabled, and TB @ WOT. Sounds to me like you have blown head gasket or cracked head. Been there, done that.

 

I know it's coming from #5 cylinder. I'm just gonna go ahead and tear the bitch down. Felpro gaskets? Are the head bolts reusable?

 

Your choice. Yes on the Felpro. You can get one re-torque out of the head bolts, provided they have not been removed before.

 

The kit I priced at O'Reilly's was 73 bucks. It came with new valve cover gaskets, valve stem seals, intake gaskets, head gaskets and exhaust manifold gaskets. Any other ideas or upgrades while I have the motor torn down to the short block?

 

Well, with 220k on the clock, you need to make a hard decision: do you want to keep the truck, or get out from under it. If it's the former, then I would go for a new long-block, and you can mod from there. If it's the later, then I would just repair it for as little as possible and then sell it.

 

My truck has 213K on the clock and I need to change the rear shocks. Should I follow your advice and sell it after I change the shocks?

 

I agree with you VW. Hell, I spend all my time wrenching on this truck anyways. I paid $2100 for it a year and a half ago. So far I've put around $4,000 in it. I know I can't get my money back out of it so I'm gonna drive it until the wheels fall off...which might be sooner than later with the bad idler arm.

 

Ok, then if it's a cracked head, put a long-block in it and don't look back. Do a full rebuild if you've got something else to drive and/or you really hate yourself.