Need advice on brother's 2002 Dodge Dakota

man of machines > wrote:
>there is a kit that can be bought at better auto parts stores that will
>test the coolant for combustion chamber gases in the coolant and will
>tell you if the head-gasket is bad

Oh, he can be pretty sure he's got combustion chamber gases in the coolant.
But the question is whether it's the head gasket or something worse.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey wrote:
> man of machines > wrote:
>> there is a kit that can be bought at better auto parts stores that will
>> test the coolant for combustion chamber gases in the coolant and will
>> tell you if the head-gasket is bad
>
> Oh, he can be pretty sure he's got combustion chamber gases in the coolant.
> But the question is whether it's the head gasket or something worse.
> --scott
>

Yeah, that would be my worry. That the engine lost coolant (for some
reason probably unrelated to the engine- like a hose or radiator leak),
was overheated, cracked a head or the block or at least warped a head,
and now has a built-in leak. All the Dakota engines from 96 onward- the
3.9 v6 (5.2 minus 2 cylinders), post '96 2.5 (actually the Jeep 2.5 that
is related to the Jeep 4.0 inline 6), the 5.2 v8, the 4.7 v8, and the
3.7 v7 (4.7 minus two cylinders) are very rugged and not prone to
blowing head gaskets without, shall we say, provocation.