Unfortunately, I can't just push it off a cliff since it isn't mine. He has a mid-90's Tahoe with the 350 Vortec. It has an unexplained loss of coolant. No leaks of any kind, not in oil as far as I can tell, but gone none the less. I was assuming he probably had a bad headgasket which was allowing cylinder pressure into the coolant system, and pushing the coolant out the resevior, but I just talked to my brother, who has a Yukon, and he said he had the same problem. I will tell you what my brother said, and see if we can figure this out together. My brother couldn't tell the difference between a spark plug, and a brake pad, so it's kind of spotty. He took his truck to a shop. The manager of the shop had been a service rep at a Chevy dealership for 15+ years, and told him...
"All the 350's do that after 10 years or so. I know exactly what it is without even looking at it. The #6 valve gasket is bad. Put some oil treatment in it, and keep the coolant at a good level until you can bring it in. It will be about $380 to fix it." Keep in mind that this is hitting my ears as a third party. I assume the guy was talking about the intake manifold gasket. What do you guys think? Anyone know a good place I can get some info on it. I doubt the guy will be quick to tell me exactly what is wrong knowing I'm not going to bring the truck to him.
Brandon
"All the 350's do that after 10 years or so. I know exactly what it is without even looking at it. The #6 valve gasket is bad. Put some oil treatment in it, and keep the coolant at a good level until you can bring it in. It will be about $380 to fix it." Keep in mind that this is hitting my ears as a third party. I assume the guy was talking about the intake manifold gasket. What do you guys think? Anyone know a good place I can get some info on it. I doubt the guy will be quick to tell me exactly what is wrong knowing I'm not going to bring the truck to him.
Brandon