99 tahoe 5.7. Head Gasket fix with Blue Devil

[jayharrell]

Well I'm giving it a try.

The wife's Tahoe started to blow white smoke that smelled like coolant yesterday and got worse by the time she made it home.

My mechanic Dad convinced me to try this Blue Devil stuff. I'm 30 minutes into the 50 minutes of idle running it needs to 'fix' the problem.

The smoke has slowed WAY down. But i still have a little coming out. I'm hoping this is just residual in the muffler.

Its looking good.

Anyone else have any experience with this stuff?

[jayharrell]

Well the steam/smoke stopped completely. Just got back from a test drive and all looks well.

Now to let it cool off. Put the thermostat back in, refill with coolant, and go back to dropping a gear in traffic.

I'll update in a few days to see if it truly fixed it or not.

[tommie]

never heard of it.... have heard of people using crystal glass... or something like that...

I have never used any of those products. Good luck with the fix.

I know the vortec sbc cylinder heads are bad about cracking.

[jayharrell]

I've never heard of the Crystal Glass.. But i'm on this Blue Devil.

Just got back from installing the thermostat and coolant. NO MORE SMOKE!!!..

Worked like a charm.

The #6 cylinder plug has fouled out twice. I cleaned it yesterday before the problem showed it self, so i pulled the plug after the fix and its clean and good. Looks like this stuff might have fixed it.

The temps are still weird though. It shows 150 most of time. then jumps to 200 and falls back off to 130 or so. Might be a bad sending unit.

Any how, there is no more steam/smoke and the #6 seems to idle out great. WOW...

Its a good deal for $80 total versus $800 for a head gasket at a shop. And if this stuff doesn't fix your rig they will refund your $$$.. How can you go wrong on this very small risk.

Worked great so far. Now a trip to HEB and run around town a bit with more info to follow.

[Hoods69BadBowTie]

Wow that's cool but crazy at the same time. Sounds like it fixed it for the most part. I have never heard of it before now! Might have to go do some research on it after this.

[clinebarger]

The only thing that can crack a head or blow a head gasket is getting the engine hot, You didnt mention that..............Bad Intake gaskets can leak water into a intake port, Ive seen coolant fill a cylinder & hydrolock the engine because of vortec intake gaskets

[jayharrell]

Yeah. It did get hot and blew the head gasket.

I had already replaced the intake gaskets a few months ago.

But this stuff is nuts. Totally fixed from what i can tell. We took it out all weekend with no problems. Crazy.

[texasfunk]

The blue devil works great! for a while...i see it used ALOT with the small used car lots...dont get me wrong..i've done it on my own vehicles cause i didnt want to replace the gaskets just yet...lasted a couple years..
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[jayharrell]

A couple of years i'll take. I think we're looking into something different by now anyway.

Once the wife has lost faith on a rig shes just done.

[Zeke]

I used something similar on a friends beater car and they have been driving in 8 years now, well worth the $55 they paid for it.

[bloertcher]

Originally Posted by clinebarger

The only thing that can crack a head or blow a head gasket is getting the engine hot, You didnt mention that..............Bad Intake gaskets can leak water into a intake port, Ive seen coolant fill a cylinder & hydrolock the engine because of vortec intake gaskets

OR a lean condition.

Just for the record,this Blue Devil might very well have remedied the issue temporarily,but it FIXED nothing.

[longbeach]

About six months ago I bought a '97 K2500 suburban that was super clean and ran good, for about two weeks. That's when I realized they had plugged the cooling system full of one of those magic potions. My bad for not taking off the radiator cap and inspecting before buying. But, anyway this stuff completely plugged the hose to the coolant expansion bottle, wiped out the seal in the water pump and the extra pressure must have also forced a small leak in what was probably a weak radiator. I had to refill and drain the coolant twice to get rid of most of the crap that was in the coolant. The radiator hoses were also trashed, insides coated with a layer of this crap( hard and crusty). Now I'm starting to see a small leak from the intake manifold, probably the culprit from the beginning. Long story short, I wished they had just left it alone and told me it needed an intake gasket. So, look for more trouble down the road or dump that thing soon.

[BigBlocksRule]

I used it once on a 4.3L. Worked fine for about a month, then crapped out.
The only way to do it right is with a gasket. Where will you be when the Blue Devil craps out on you? In the middle of nowhere or maybe get lucky and be close to home...because it is NOT a permanent fix.

[jayharrell]

Well i was close to home, end of the drive way to be exact. Last weekend it blew the head.

For the $$ that was spent it is definitely worth the risk for the 6 months of reward of not rebuilding the motor. It allowed me to know the problem was there and SAVE some cash to be prepared for this hard failure.

Well worth the cash.