Can it be saved?????????

Question

I have a 84' Dodge ram pickup and on a 40 mile drive my head gasket went and i didnt notice it untill i got home. it was over heating and i thought it was the thermostat but after i did some investagiting i found melted gasket. it is aluminum and i talked to a few mechanic buddys of mine and one said to scrap the truck and the other said i can carefully scrape the other gasket off and replace it.... what should I do???

Answer 1

what gasket was bad? and you always try and repair before guessing... replace the thermostat and gasket would be my first step

Answer 2

We've had two cars that have had blown head gaskets.  Unless the truck is pretty new, and even better, under warranty, it's not worth it.  One  of ours was pretty new and had a manufacturer's defect and was repaired under warranty.  The other was an 86 pickup - we replaced the engine - and it still had problems.  We gave up and sold it cheap a year later.

Be aware that there will be other things that will go wrong because of the overheating.  For example, we had an oxygen sensor go out after the warrantied car was repaired and it had to be replaced too.

If it's an 84, time to replace it.