head gasket?

this is going to sound like a stupid question ..but since i am a female(lol)

how do i know if my head gasket is blown?

i have a 1990 chevy lumina 3.1 euro

thanks

couple tell-tale signs: air bubbles in coolant overflow tank, erratic temp gauge, heater working intermittently. The car may also be blowing some white smoke that kinda smells sweet.

a sweet smell from the exhaust and loss of coolant with no visible leaks are the two easiest signs.

Signs of a blown head gasket:
thick white smoke from exhuast
oil looks like chocolate milk
oil in radiator or overflow tank
LOTS of air bubbles in antifreeze
poor idle and loss of power
temp guage fluctuating eratically
theres more but those are the most common symptoms

If you are, or were, driving the car then the car would do some serious jerking. That's from the water that runs through the engine getting into the cylinder head.
Also, you can check your spark plugs to see if one of them is wet or has some rust on it. That comes from the water getting into the chamber with the spark plug.
What ever plug you find that is wet, that is where you have the blown head gasket. If it's on the back then your head gasket on the back is blown. If a plug is wet in the front then the front gasket is blown.

Good luck with that. I had a blown head gasket on my Lumina and it's no joke breaking down the engine to get to the gaskets.

Thank you guys! so far i havent noticed any white smoke coming from the exchaust but when i opened the raditor cap it looks like it is mixed with oil... well im hoping its not a blown head gasket i guess i will just have to wait for my bf to look at it and then fiqure out the verdict.

thank you

Thank you guys! so far i havent noticed any white smoke coming from the exchaust but when i opened the raditor cap it looks like it is mixed with oil... well im hoping its not a blown head gasket i guess i will just have to wait for my bf to look at it and then fiqure out the verdict.

thank you

That sounds more like the lower intake gasket leak.

Meaning??????

The lower intake gasket on the later 3.1L engines has a habit of blowing at higher mileage (usually after 60-80k). The intake manifold has coolant passages that flow through it to connect to the radiator, pump, heads, etc. If that gasket blows (and I can almost guarentee it will at least once), then you can have coolant in oil, oil in coolant (less common), oil or coolant in the cylinders (and therefore exhaust smoke), or an external leak. Though I'm not so sure about a 1990 3.1L, I never heard of many problems with the lower gasket.

When you checked the radiator were there little pudles of oil floating around on top? Or did the antifreeze just look kinda brownish? Usually when an intake gasket bows out it dumps a whole lot of antifreeze into the crankcase. Check the oil, if it looks like chocolate milk (light brown and foamy) its probably the intake gasket.