Gurgle after shutdown?

[Chevy305]

My truck has been doing this for a little while now where the coolant expansion tank gurgles a little after I shut it down. I doesn't gurgle while its running from what I can tell. I replaced the radiator cap but still no difference. I'm thinking it could be a head gasket but I'm not loosing any coolant...

Any ideas?

The engine is a '90 350, bored .030 over, eagle rotating assembly, patriot performance aluminum heads, and a weiand aluminum water pump.

 

[TerryD]

What pressure radiator cap are you using? 16lb? How long has the motor been put together? Have you checked your antifreeze/water mix ratio recently?

 

[Chevy305]

What pressure radiator cap are you using? 16lb? How long has the motor been put together? Have you checked your antifreeze/water mix ratio recently?

It's either a 15 or 16 psi cap, I can't remember which.

The motor has about 5000 miles on it. The deck was never machined but it was straight so it wasn't required.

The coolant is a good 50/50 mix and is clean. No oil, no carbon deposits, no nothing.

 

[diesel4me]

I've had a few trucks that would "burp" into the overflow bottle after shutting the engine off too---they never filled it to the point of overflow or lost any coolant,so I just figured it was normal,some "heat soak" always occours after the water pump stops circulating the coolant,and you can actually watch the temp gauge rise quite a bit if you leave the key on after its been shut off ,then see it go back down....I wouldn't worry about it unless it really peukes a lot of coolant out...

 

[Blue85]

Mine used to do that, too. I can't tell you why it stopped, but I never had any problems either way.

 

[Chevy305]

I've had a few trucks that would "burp" into the overflow bottle after shutting the engine off too---they never filled it to the point of overflow or lost any coolant,so I just figured it was normal,some "heat soak" always occours after the water pump stops circulating the coolant,and you can actually watch the temp gauge rise quite a bit if you leave the key on after its been shut off ,then see it go back down....I wouldn't worry about it unless it really peukes a lot of coolant out...

Mine used to do that, too. I can't tell you why it stopped, but I never had any problems either way.

I googled "coolant gurgle" and it came up with endless car forums of all kinds of different makes and models of the same symptoms I am getting. So I guess it is "normal"... Go figure

The gurgle isn't excessive but you can hear it for a few seconds after shutdown depending on how hard/long the engine was run. I'm not going to worry about it anymore I guess. Thanks for the replies!

 

[63chevyll]

My dads truck.did a little girggle, and later we found out the heater core was causing it

 

[Blue85]

That sound is perfectly normal if you just ate at Taco Bell.

 

[Fordum]

Its always been my experience that if you get a gurgle after shutdown, you didn't tie the noose tight enough......