Rough Idle and White Smoke... Is my head done??

[FrustratedMunky]

My car has been idling low lately, under 1K rpm and needs to revved for 5-10sec before it maintains a good idle. It's been burning through my coolant like crazy, having to fill up every other day and on cold starts, it smokes a lot of white smoke for a good 5-10min of driving initially. When my mechanic opened it up, he said the sparkplugs were flooded. I'm thinking it's the profile gasket, if not the head might be cracked. What are the chances that it's just a faulty gasket and not the the entire head that needs replacing? Note that the car is at about 250K km, so it's definaly not on its original profile gasket. And how much am I looking at if I were to fix it under both circumstances?

[Dj Buttchug]

does the car overheat?

[FrustratedMunky]

it does after it burns up all the coolant, and it's been doing that alot lately.

[M-technik-3]

You've answered your own questions. Yes either the head is cracked or the gasket is toast.

[3bvert]

depending on the crack, it can be repaired. I had to have mine welded because I coul d not find a used one at the time. the repair has lasted 2 years now. the totla head rebuild, re-surface and weld ran me about 500. that included new some new valves.
the crack was a tricky one, it was in the exsaust , after the seat, nearly out of the head near the manifold, and not visible at first
but the symptoms were like yours, I was told, I bought it, towed it home, and yanked it apart, in hopes it was only a gasket

[carnurd]

depending on the crack, it can be repaired. I had to have mine welded because I coul d not find a used one at the time. the repair has lasted 2 years now. the totla head rebuild, re-surface and weld ran me about 500. that included new some new valves.
the crack was a tricky one, it was in the exsaust , after the seat, nearly out of the head near the manifold, and not visible at first
but the symptoms were like yours, I was told, I bought it, towed it home, and yanked it apart, in hopes it was only a gasket

Been there done that, I had a cracked head plumes of white smoke, cylinder #2 was steam cleaned, pulled the head hoping it was a gasket, it was not it was the head :(. Same exact symptoms.... Found a used head for 200 bucks though and rebuilt that sucker and was good to go.