Cylinder Head Gasket

[Bryn]

Just been told mine has a problem. Just curious as to what i will be stung with.

I am guessin its damn heafty.

[Jesus]

I'd get a second opinion on the head gasket.

From what I remember you said you had steam coming out of the engine bay when you stopped. This to me sounds like a split in a pipe where the steam can escape from. If the head gasket was gone, it would be pretty unlikely you'd see that.

It's true that a head gasket could fail as a result of that if driven whilst not having the water to cool the engine.

Might be worth getting your cylinder head compression tested before committing to changing the head gasket. It's a fair amount of work only to find your head gasket was OK.

If it is the head gasket you might as well get the head checked for warping, and if necessary get it skimmed. Skim it as little as possible though as you'll be increasing compression ratio by doing this, and increasing the chance of detonation if gone too far. Not too much of a problem if N/A, but more noticeably so on a turbo.

[Bryn]

I think the steam was created by coolent leakin on something hot and boiling away but then again i am proly wrong.

I will be takin it to a garage to get checked anyway.

Mr AA showed me this devise that he put on one of the tubes for the coolent which sucked air out of the tube through a blue liquid. He said that the water should change from blue to yellow if there was something wrong with the head gasget. It didn't. Which was nice.

But after that the engine temp was still increasing. There is large amount of smoke comin out of the exhaust aswell.

I'm not gonna drive it and see what i can do i.e. get it picked up and checked.

I only got it 3 mounts and about 3000 miles ago and it hasnt done 47000.

This sucks.

Cheers jesus

[ricomr2]

Does sound a bit like the same things that happened to mine before the gasket went.

The steam would be coming from the header tank lid being blown off with the pressure building up.

I bought a gasket for £42 and got a mate to do the job for me,

but having seen it being done i could have done it myself!!

Didnt cost me much more than that after buying oil, antifreeze and so on,

but a garage will charge anything up to £300 (ish) for the work as it is a big job.

Also, my head was ok (no warping)

[houston]

could even be summit as simple as your radiator cap isnt on securely. i did this to my old primera (doh)