Can a Head Gasket Fail Slowly?

[JR'Z 525]

Been noticing a few things lately about my 92 M50. Been losing a minute amount of coolant for the last year. Recently some of it is dropping on the belt and is being slung onto the alternator ram air tube and airfilter box. I thought it was the t-stat housing and pulled it off and put new o-rings on it. I pulled 3 out of 6 spark plugs a week ago and they all had a bluish tint on the ceramic around the tip - similar to the blue BMW coolant in color. About every 3 weeks I have to add about a half to three quarter inch of coolant to the reservior. Just wondering if the head gasket is dying a slow death?
Thanks,
JR

[ryan roopnarine]

autozone, pboys, and DAP all have ultraviolet test kits in which you can put dye into your af and see where it is going, believe it costs like 90 or so. i personally don't like the combustion gas tester, because it didn't work in my case solidly. pepboys has a service where they will UV dye ac or coolant for 35 or so, but in my case they bs'd me and said that "their computer wouldn't work on my car." you can also pressurize the cyls with compressed air and see if you can generate bubbles in the rad. its entirely possible its a slow consumption/leakage problem, though i don't work on these cars for a living, so ill leave that advisement for bill or winf.

[Bill R.]

leakage test kit which you can get as a loaner tool and you buy the chemical from them for the test for about 12.00 a bottle...

autozone, pboys, and DAP all have ultraviolet test kits in which you can put dye into your af and see where it is going, believe it costs like 90 or so. i personally don't like the combustion gas tester, because it didn't work in my case solidly. pepboys has a service where they will UV dye ac or coolant for 35 or so, but in my case they bs'd me and said that "their computer wouldn't work on my car." you can also pressurize the cyls with compressed air and see if you can generate bubbles in the rad. its entirely possible its a slow consumption/leakage problem, though i don't work on these cars for a living, so ill leave that advisement for bill or winf.

[ryan roopnarine]

i found out that they rented it after I paid 15 for one somewhere else. i don't like the things because, (and i did have a HG leak, which was revealed when the head was off) i had to screw around with the thing SOOOO much, and it still didn't work 100%. i've taken through organic chemistry , I know how the thing is supposed to work, the mechanism that reveals a combustion gas leak, and how the liquid is supposed to interact with it, yet, after about 10 tries, i could only get a SLIGHT tinge of green in the blue, and that was likely because it was contaminated from me dicking around with it so much. i'd have appreciated the uv test more because i could have likely definitively seen the coolant contamination at the tailpipe, and rule out it having leaked out of somewhere else. this way would have knew that the HG would need to be replaced.