pkurtz2

Ulysses,
Your problem sounds IDENTICAL to mine. If your truck has 275,000 on it, I
would say its due for head gaskets anyway. If you know you can do it
yourself, it will probably only cost you about 150 bucks to do it. I get a
discount at O'reillys becuase I am an automotive student, so its only going
to cost me about 100 bucks. One of the primary reasons on my truck I think
that its the headgasket is due to the fact that when I turn the truck off it
still pushes air out of my radiator into the expansion (overflow) tank. If
yours does this, and when you open the radiator on a cold engine first thing
in the morning, and you get pressure out of it.. You probably have a leaking
head gasket... Leaking Valve seals usually dont cause rough starts unless
its allowed to go on too long and the plugs are indeed fouled. That is the
second symptom of leaking valve seals. But the first symptom of leaking
valve seals, is blue smoke when you first start the engine. Thats cause its
burning the oil that dripped into the engine when it wasnt running. Just
watch your tail pipe when first start your car (should be easier to see on a
warm engine). So the next time you take it to the grocery store and turn it
off for like an hour and then restart it.. If your valve seals are leaking,
this is when you will really notice it.

"Ulysses" <therealulysses@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:11sqi2elue0qhdb@corp.supernews.com...
> Your diagnosis sounds good to me but what if it runs rough at start-up but
> is not losing coolant? I have a '92 Explorer 4.0 V6 OHV with a mere
> 275,000
> miles on it and it runs rough at first then smooths out after a minute or
> two (or if I rev it up a little at first). I also have not pulled the
> plugs
> recently but could leaking valve seals cause this? I recently replaced
> the
> radiator because it was dumping coolant out of the reservoir and it had
> white smoke coming out the tailpipe (burning coolant?). I added some
> (GASP!) stop leak that is supposed to seal cracked heads and leaky head
> gaskets and the smoke went away but it still runs rought at startup. I
> also
> recently replaced the water pump and have cleaned the MAF and the other
> (?)
> sensors. The intake manifold gaskets have also been changed. I realize
> at
> this many miles it could be more than one problem. Could a clogged
> radiator
> also cause pressure build-up and coolant loss and contribute to a head
> gasket leak?
>
>
>