Only if it leaks.

And yeah, the UV light trick was news to me too. And I've been doing this a LONG time......

 

I found out years back when I was chasing down a coolant loss that turned out to be a head gasket issue. I was shining a UV light down in cylinder 5 and it revealed traces of coolant that glowed. I went back and scoped cylinder and was actually able to confirm it by rocking the truck and watching the liquid move down in the cylinder. The better part of the story is that I used a specific stop leak product and fixed it for roughly 20 bucks, well $40.... I had to do it twice to overcome the learning curve. That was about 50K ago. I've never pulled the heads.

 

I don't have this problem yet but do you remember which stop leak that you used?

 

I used K&W permanent HG & block repair. https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/p/...campaign=27795

I did my research and chose to use it specifically because it's not a solution you pour into the coolant and leave in. Those are bad because it would remain circulating thru things like the radiator and heater core. Rather, the K&W works like this... you have to drain all the coolant and flush it out with water, before refilling with water and adding the K&W. The way it works is that it turns to glass when it hits the extremely high temps, like gasket cracks around the pistons, cracks in the head and adjacent block. While it's flowing thru the radiator and heater core, etc.. it's does not get super hot and remains liquid. I believe the instructions say to run it for 20 min or so, but I ran it for 500 miles (see thread below and you'll understand). You then have to drain and let it sit for around a week with the rad cap off, then you come back and flush it water again, before adding coolant. I disconnected my heater core and looped the hoses at the time but I probably did not need to.

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/2nd-gen...options-2.html

 

Thank you for the thorough response!