ok my car has a few problems and on of them is this
the hose that comes off of the top of the radiator is its normal temp while the engine is running
the other big hose that comes off of the bottom of the raditor is cold
i changed the thermostat and it still has this problem
and the next day i looked in the bucket i drained the coolant into and it had separeted and there was oil in it
so now i need a head gasket

but before i do all the work to it
could it be that the block is cracked internally and the collant in the water jacket is mixing with the oil in the oil gallery

my friend who is a mechanic suggested that it might be cracked because if the main hose to the block is cold that means the block is getting really hot
but it could have been really hot and warped the head, and not be cracked


if any one could suggest something i would greatly appreciate it

thanks
Ryan

 

Unfortunately you won't know the condition of the engine until you yank the heads off. Depending on your flow, one hose line should be a hell of a lot hotter than the other, but it still should feel warm. A headgasket will show sometimes signs of white smoke out the tailpipe or massive overheating of the engine. I just did a job this weekend where I drained brown coolant out a car that hasn't had it's coolant drained in almost 4 years and it definitly also looked like oil in the coolant. That can be caused by two things, rust and if you mix the green coolant with red coolant. I also looked at the oil and coolant and made sure it wasn't milky looking. Did your coolant look milky, that would definitly indicate a headgasket problem also. Of course a good amount of hoses where caked on from the rust, so I replaced a few of those, replaced the thermostate, flushed the hell out of the lines until I got clear water, but I did get a lot of brown coolant out, with a bunch of rust pieces, I'll tell you that. I wanted to replace the water pump but said nah...since it is in the timing belt housing and I didn't feel like ripping that apart. This was in a Toyota so I put back the redline stuff in the system, but it's clean as hell now.

I wonder if you have perhaps a line somewhere that is clogged from the rust? Tried running a chemical flush through your system? One of the major areas that get clogged is the small lines atop the Throttle Body, you might want to check those.

 

On Hondas/Acuras the rad. hoses should be around 10 degrees of each other when the car is warmed up. What type of t-stat did you replace it with? Honda? Autozone?
How does the rad. look inside? They sell head gasket block testers pretty cheap nowdays, it's the type with the dye and cylinder. I got mine for around 50 bucks off the tool truck. That would tell you for sure.

 

If the radiator is clogged with deposits, the flow rate will be low. Now the water has plenty of time to cool down, so the lower hose is cold. But there's not enough flow to cool the engine. That's separate from your headgasket/crack business, except maybe the overheating caused it...