Head gasket?

[Wh1teLeopard]

Even since i've had my beat it's gone through water and oli very quickly, I have to top both up at least once a month now!

And recently my temperature guage has been soaring, and on opening the water bottle (carefully) there are HUGE bubbles in it, I would guess it's over 130 degrees centergrade in there! After a while the temperature drops to normal and it's ok again then til the next time.

Am i right in thinking this could be a result of a faulty headgasket?

[tinytim]

It COULD be the head gasket but maybe not.
Generally (but not always) if the HG goes on both oil and water you will know about it. Water in the cylinder will give you white smoke from the exhaust, oil will give you blue, so unless you are trailing pale blue smoke I doubt it's this but there are some tests you can do yourself.

Get the car so you can reach the large water pipes, start the engine if the pipes go hard you probably have a blown head gasket on the water side. Coolant blowouts can be tricky to diagnose sometimes but you should get some or all of these symptoms:
1. White smoke when starting up.
2. Increased coolant pressure when running.
3. Coolant being forced out of the overflow.

There are 2 more definitive checks but you will need a garage or at least some test kit and carry out a coolant pressure check and a crankcase compression check. Both simple and straight forward but you need the kit and you need to know what you are looking for so a friendly mechanic would be your best option.

I assume you have been topping up the coolant system with water for a bit (no problem in the summer but before the winter make sure you put coolant in it) You may be running a bit of a risk with your water pump, most coolant mixes offer some lubrication as well. The main problem with running on water is you will not find the leak. The coolant gets up to 110-130 in most cars, it stays liquid simply because it's sealed, under pressure in your coolant system. If you get a small leak it will immediately vaporise and disappear as steam, which you may well not see. Coolant also has a die in it so when it leaks it will leave a stain so you can find it.

A few questions:
1: Does the car overheat when the coolant system is full?
2: Does your oil look like; new oil, black or dark tan?
3: How much smoke does the exhaust put out when warm? (You really should only be able to see it fairly close to the tail pipe, by 3 feet it should have disipated)
4. Is there a colour tinge to any smoke?

[LawrenceHarding]

About 30 years ago we had a head gasket problem on a Hillman Imp one cylinder filled up with water and locked the engine. You need to get this sorted soon!!!

[LawrenceHarding]

How much oil and are you trying to keep it to the top mark? If your engine is burning oil it will drop from full to halfway much faster than halfway to empty. Is the radiator ok? If the fins are falling off it wont cool effectively, if its leaking you loose coolant and pressure. Lack of pressure will cause boiling.

[Wh1teLeopard]

A few questions:
1: Does the car overheat when the coolant system is full?

To be honest it's more of a case of it over heats then i know it's ran out of water... but I do fill it up with coolant and water each time, not just water on it's own.

2: Does your oil look like; new oil, black or dark tan?

It's a dark tan almost black colour

3: How much smoke does the exhaust put out when warm? (You really should only be able to see it fairly close to the tail pipe, by 3 feet it should have disipated)

I haven't noticed any smoke at all when it's warm, just a lot of vapour!

4. Is there a colour tinge to any smoke?

Like I said dont think there's any smoke!


Originally posted by LawrenceHarding
How much oil and are you trying to keep it to the top mark? If your engine is burning oil it will drop from full to halfway much faster than halfway to empty. Is the radiator ok? If the fins are falling off it wont cool effectively, if its leaking you loose coolant and pressure. Lack of pressure will cause boiling.

I top the oil up to the top mark whenever it runs low.

I haven't cheked the radiator. But haven't noticed any water on the drive when I move the car :confused:

[Adam]

Well if your topping up with coolant all the time then its got to be going somewhere.

Best to take off the inspection panel on the back and check the inside of the oil cap for white gunk. Then you will know for sure but if your loosing coolant and the oil is tan then I'm afraid you got head gasket gone.

This is most likely due to overheating. Which could mean that the thermo switch is gone too. Or there was water insted of coolant, or the water pump is gone but that would cause the cam belt to snap, so thats most likely ok.

Anyway good luck with this, I hope I'm wrong.

[Sharpen]

Hi, I'd agree with adam, the creamy brown gunk on the underside of the oil filler cap is a good indication of water getting into the oil system on any car. our beat had similar overheating/ water consumption issues, so this might be something common, the water level seemed ok looking at the level under the bonnet but the filler bottle in the boot kept emptying- I thing there was some sort of air lock somewhere. water consumption totally dissapeared suddenly after filling the expansion bottle 3-4 times.??wierd

[Wh1teLeopard]

Well oil cap was clean, just a nice healthy black colour, no sign of water and no unusual smells!!!

A friend advised that there was a small amount of evidence of oil in the water but no water in the oil!!!

Took the radiator cap off and there was a while, then eventually water, so friend advised he thinks it might have been an air lock...

which explains the overheating, but not where my water is going? Still confused as to where all my water is going:confused:

[Jennifer]

Id get the whole system bled again just to make sure. I have had this happen on my current car. PLus as for the loss of oil check the exhaust old one and new one, if there are no obvious leaks may be getting out throught eh exhasut

[jurek]

Hi its Head gastet !!
If the gastet goes betreen the water way and the cylinder then you burn the water and it eskapes with the exchaust gasses. this has probably caused the head to warp and as a result you are burning oil on an other cylinder. Best way to check it to pull the plugs out the one on the water leak will be damp or have a white /yellow depopsit or Very cleen looking . The other plug will be black or oily. You dont need to have white deposit on the oil filler cap. But classic sign is the bubbling of CO2 and CO in the water bottle.
You will find the head warped !!! sorry

[JGGIB]

Silly question but could it half any think to do with the chip you just had fitted ?

[Wh1teLeopard]

Originally posted by JGGIB
Silly question but could it half any think to do with the chip you just had fitted ?

Problem has been evident well before the chip was fitted.

We couldn't smell any exhaust gases coming from the water system when we left it running, so without doing a good old CO2 test in the water I doubt it.

[jurek]

Hi again in the first post you said you had big bubbles of gas. Thats the CO2. I has no smell but will blow a lighted match out.
after 40 odd years of playing with cars..... , Its your head gasket.
you have the classic symptoms, at tick over its cool, till car under load then gets hot fast?. and loss of oil but that ould be fault in a ring. Look at your plugs and post photo of what they look like.

[Wh1teLeopard]

it doesn't get hot all the time just when it runs out of water... i didn't phrase it very well...

Basically my water is disappearing and as a result my car is over heating, it only over heats when theres no water which is understandable, I just want to know where my water is going!!! My water isn't disappearing because of the heat, the water disappears then it over heats!!!

[Steve_M]

Two options then.

1) External leak (poss radiator/coolant pipes) should be able to spot dripping etc.

2) internal leak (headgasket/warped head/cracked block) is the oil level staying contant, oil quality still ok,

get a cylinder leakage test carried out when hot.

HTH

[LawrenceHarding]

Take a look at the radiator after starting from cold as the engine warms up, shine a torch thru grille, and look for damp / discoloured areas. A small leak will loose water without dripping as the hot radiator will evaporate the leakage. The same applies to other parts of the system. Regarding oil how many miles between topups.

[Wh1teLeopard]

Think I finally found it... was topping the water up for our anual mad dash to Brighton... then noticed there was water dripping out the bottom of the tank when I hadn't spilt any water... so it's something in that area, either the big hose that I assume goes off around the engine... or a split in the bottom of the tank...

any tips on how to remove the bottle in the back for closer inspection???

(I did check the hoses were actually on properly, from what I can tell they are on tightly, but would like a closer look)