2001 Chevy Silverado with a 5.3 L engine and a leaking head gasket that was getting worse (at 217,000 miles). Car has rusted body (upstate NY), so not going to spend too much for repairs. Decided to try one of those “magic elixors” in a bottle. Went for the Bars Leaks head gasket repair stuff - 16 ozs. cost $35.00 plus tax. Followed directions, etc (put it into the top radiator tube, NOT the overflow bottle). The stuff had little strings of copper-looking stuff floating in it.
Long story short - it worked. After a little more loss of coolant, the coolant loss has finally stopped. Amazing that something like this really worked.
Tom and Ray have discussed using this or a similar product several times on their Car Talk radio show, and the most recent discussion was only a few shows ago. You can look it up in the show archives for which show it was if you like and listen to what they said. It actually worked? Good on you! I think this was the best $35 you have spent in a good while!
You can call a local pharmacy and order up a bottle of sodium silicate for about $20.00, dump it in the radiator and it’ll do the same thing.
You can read how sodium silicate can stop head gasket leaks here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_silicate#Automotive_repair
Tester
A few months back my daughter asked me on the phone about a small coolant leak around the upper radiator hose on her car and from the conversation I gathered it was the T-stat housing. I told her to add a spoon of black pepper to the coolant bottle until I could get my hands on the car.
It stopped the leak completely and the leak (2 of them actually) did turn out to be the T-stat housing; and all due to a lousy engineering design. The only permanent fix was a new housing and ECT sensor because Ford in their infinite wisdom designed the replacement housing so it will not accept the original ECT sensor and a new sensor at 40 something dollars must be purchased to finish the job.
“When you’ve got them by the b***'s, their hearts and minds will follow” H.R. Halderman, Nixon’s chief of staff.
The pepper clogged up the hole??
Yes in a pinch, Pepper will seal a small coolent leak (my motor lab teacher in HS told me that, He also said egg whites work as well)