I'm not sure if I've got a blown headgasket or some kind of odd problem with my cooling system. The car was throwing belts last month at anything over 4500 rpm so I replaced the tensioner. This fixed the belt problem but not before I threw a belt about a mile from home and had to limp in causing the car to over heat. The gauge was at the top, but it has been worse. I drive the car about 1200 miles a week now, so I need to get this figured out.

I started smelling coolant after sitting in stop and go traffic (gotta love that Dallas traffic ) about a week ago. It is not much and only happens while sitting or going very slowly. I have not noticed a drop in coolant level and the temp gauge never moves. This week I started getting alot of detonation at low rpm under load in 1st and 6th after driving about a 1/2 hour in traffic. Its not unusual for me to get pinging in 6th under 70mph, but now its alot worse. I have checked for all the obvious signs of a head gasket problem. Oil in the coolant, coolant in the oil, steam from the tail pipes and oil fill, bubbles in the radiator. All of these show no evidence of a head gasket problem.

The detonation makes me think that the car is running really hot, but the gauge never moves from it's regular postion ofter warming up. If it is a cooling problem why is the gauge not showing it? Even if it is the headgasket, wouldn't that also make the car run hot? Maybe a coolant passage in the block or one of the heads is blocked making only part of the head/engine run hot? Maybe the head gasket has a small leak? I'm at a loss on this one.
I would hate to drop the cash on hardware to replace the headgaskets and this not fix the problem, but this looks like my next step.

I was going to head down to the shootout in San Antonio this weekend, but now I have to get this figured out

 

You should check for leaks, and then pressure test the coolin system. There is a device that screws into where the radiator cap would go.