C20let Head Gasket Gone?

[tb303]

have recently replaced the rad for a c20xe one which is bigger as my stock rad was leaking.
now it seems that water level drops 1-2cm every now and then. almost every 100km.
dont know where the coolant goes.
there is no mayo in the coolant tank and no mayo rusty colour on the oil cap on the rocker cover.
i know there are leaks around the engine such as the dizzy (still leaking after 4 o'ring replacements), around the rocker cover, and i think there might be oil around the head but i am not sure if it's leaking from there or it just gets gathered from the rocker cover leaks.

concerning pressure in the coolant tank, there is if you try to open the cap when the car is warm. isnt that normal? i mean water evaporates at 82 celcius + therefore when coolant temps are almost 90 - 95 degrees there should be pressure in the system. how much time after should i open the cap to see if there is pressure in it?

as soon as i travel 60km and i turn of the car, i pop open the bonnet and i can hear bubbling near the area of the turbo and the rocker cover. what is it? is it normal? i also see some water being returned from the turbo return pipe into the coolant tank and it comes in splashes (like when I CUM)
is that normal?

other than the above, the car smokes a little bit only in the morning and there is clear water with some carbon dust that is splashed as soon as i fire it up. i think this is due to the exhaust being cold in the morning because it's stainless steel?

any ideas what else to test to see where the coolant goes? i am not worried as much about the coolant as i am about a fecked head gasket. i just want to know how i can find out about if the head gasket is gone.


cheers
Tio

[imcsherry]

A compression test is your obvious first port of call folowed by a leak down test if the figures look poor.

[tb303]

what are the normal numbers i should get?

[imcsherry]

From the figures quoted on most people off here usually somewhere in the region of 150-170psi per cylinder with as little variation as possible between the four of them (it will vary on the age/condition of the engine/bores).

[DAMEscort]

as soon as i travel 60km and i turn of the car, i pop open the bonnet and i can hear bubbling near the area of the turbo and the rocker cover. what is it? is it normal? i also see some water being returned from the turbo return pipe into the coolant tank and it comes in splashes (like when I CUM)
is that normal?

Could it be that there is air in the system, hence the reason also for the water level dropping and the "spurting" from the turbo water feed? Maybe a good idea to try bleeding the system.

[Ed]

I have exactly the same symptoms as you, apart from the smoking. I recently changed my cambelt though and reckon I have disturbed the water pump seal causing it to leak. I'm going to pressurise the coolant system and then get under the car and check for the leak. I have bought a water pump in anticipation already though.

[tb303]

how do i bleed the damn coolant system efficiently?

today in the morning it appeared that coolant went down by 1cm in the coolant tank max level and i put some coolant to level it. i drove 60km and checked the tank. coolant level was down by 3mm. i did not put any more coolant. i traveled 60km back and parked the car. after 2 hours i checked again. coolant in the tank was increased by 2cm over max level.

wtf???!!!

[EY]

The level in the header tank will rise and fall by a couple of cm depending on the temp of the coolant. That's why you should only check the level and top it up when the coolant is cold.

[DAMEscort]

The level in the header tank will rise and fall by a couple of cm depending on the temp of the coolant. That's why you should only check the level and top it up when the coolant is cold.

You cant bleed the air out the system when cold as the thermostat will be closed hence not let the water circulate allowing any trapped air to reach the top. The way i have always done it is to fill the system cold with the car switched off, then leaving the radiator cap off start the car and switch the heaters on and make sure they are at hot then allow to heat up to running temp keeping an eye on the water level and topping up as required (dont let the header tank empty). Make sure you are getting heat through into the car and once the water level in the header tank settles and remains at the same level refit the cap and alow the car to idle till the radiator fan comes on ensuring the cars temp sits as it should.

[tb303]

I did the compression test as recommended by a few people. 

I will name the cylinders the way you look at them in front of the engine bay as 1,2,3,4.


They should look something like this:





So I got a compression tester off a friend who happens to be a mechanic. This one in particular.



I removed all the spark plugs in the respective order described above according to each cylinder. As soon as I removed the plug from cylinder 4, I noticed smoke coming out of the plug hole. The plugs below are numbered in their respective order. Please note that plug from cylinder 4 is completely white!!!



I did the compression test then. I just plugged in the compression tester by hand and cranked the engine making sure the coil plug was removed from the dizzy. Rpm was around 2500 while cranking. I was cranking the engine till the gauge reached a max level and would not go any further. Please note that all cylinders were open and venting to atmosphere except the one being tested. (hope this was right )

The results are as follows:

Cylinder 1 170psi
Cylinder 2 170psi
Cylinder 3 170psi
Cylinder 4 150psi

I redid cylinder 4 test multiple times. It just wouldn’t go any further even if I was cranking the engine for 10 hours
I then added a teaspoon of engine oil very thin similar to Mobil1, and redid the test. Compression rose to approx 167psi to 168psi. I redid the test after a few minutes and compression only reached 160psi with the oil still in the piston.

Then I put everything back and fired up the engine. There was a little white smoke coming from the exhaust and clear colour water. I removed again plug from cylinder 4 to redo the test. I checked to see if there was any smoke coming off the plug hole in the cylinder. There was none. Did the test with the compression tester again and still compression reached only 148psi to 150psi max.

I put everything back again very sadly as I was hoping for something better than this. I fired up the car and left it for 5-10 minutes. I then noticed that the car was smoking like a bitch. White smoke, everywhere!!! The smell was awful. I think it smelled like oil burning. I drove back home 1km and the smell was sweet as the one of the coolant if I am not mistaken.
I took some video of the smoke and that was after my bro came behind my car to light the place up. So it shows small bits of smoke and some water spilled from the exhaust. A few minutes before the video, the neighborhood was wearing gas masks.

white smoke video
http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y21...MOV-0003-2.flv

water from the exhaust video
http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y21...t=MOV-0004.flv

Anyhow, now I am stuck with a big problem I suppose, right?
any ideas on what the readings mean?

[Scoobler]

have recently replaced the rad for a c20xe one which is bigger as my stock rad was leaking.
now it seems that water level drops 1-2cm every now and then. almost every 100km.
dont know where the coolant goes.

Have the coolant system pressure tested. If you can see a leak, there is your problem. If a cylinder fills with water, then its a headgasket.

there is no mayo in the coolant tank and no mayo rusty colour on the oil cap on the rocker cover.

When a headgasket goes, it can go between the cylinder and water way, so there maybe no mixing of oil and water.

i know there are leaks around the engine such as the dizzy (still leaking after 4 o'ring replacements), around the rocker cover, and i think there might be oil around the head but i am not sure if it's leaking from there or it just gets gathered from the rocker cover leaks.

Its a vauxhall engine, expect leaks lmao

concerning pressure in the coolant tank, there is if you try to open the cap when the car is warm. isnt that normal? i mean water evaporates at 82 celcius + therefore when coolant temps are almost 90 - 95 degrees there should be pressure in the system. how much time after should i open the cap to see if there is pressure in it?

Its hard to say, the system needs to be under a set amount of pressure to remain cool, without pressure the systems temps will be all over the show. However when running, remove the cap if there are any bubbles coming up then there is probably a h/g problem.

as soon as i travel 60km and i turn of the car, i pop open the bonnet and i can hear bubbling near the area of the turbo and the rocker cover. what is it? is it normal? i also see some water being returned from the turbo return pipe into the coolant tank and it comes in splashes (like when I CUM)

Because of the heat in the turbo, as soon as you switch off the engine and the water stops pumping round, it will boil the water, this is normal.

other than the above, the car smokes a little bit only in the morning and there is clear water with some carbon dust that is splashed as soon as i fire it up. i think this is due to the exhaust being cold in the morning because it's stainless steel?

A little smoke is normal, with condensation and stuff. But it can also be a sign of a blown h/g as the water will really only enter the cylinder when the engine is off - otherwise there is too much pressure pushing the water out of it. Hence with the engine off it will seep in there. Is the car any harder than normal to start? With water in the cylinders it can dampen the spark plug making it harder to start.

how do i bleed the damn coolant system efficiently?

The way I have always done it is, fill the system, start the car and top up the tank if the level drops, put on the cap, let the engine run up to temp (till the fan kicks in), turn off and carefully remove the cap and full up again.

I removed all the spark plugs in the respective order described above according to each cylinder. As soon as I removed the plug from cylinder 4, I noticed smoke coming out of the plug hole. The plugs below are numbered in their respective order. Please note that plug from cylinder 4 is completely white!!!

This is something that needs looking into quickly - a white plug indicates overheating, allthough it doesn't look very white, infact it looks about right. However 1+2 look to be suffering from burning oil in the cylinders. Seeing the compression results I would guess at valve stem oil seals, these will often cause smoke on start up and idle.

I did the compression test then. I just plugged in the compression tester by hand and cranked the engine making sure the coil plug was removed from the dizzy. Rpm was around 2500 while cranking. I was cranking the engine till the gauge reached a max level and would not go any further. Please note that all cylinders were open and venting to atmosphere except the one being tested. (hope this was right )

The results are as follows:

Cylinder 1 170psi
Cylinder 2 170psi
Cylinder 3 170psi
Cylinder 4 150psi

This is not all that bad actually, i have always been told you dont really want anything more than about 15 psi between all the bores, but I have seen alot worse (I had an xe which was 38psi lower on cylinder4, it ran like this for around 40,000 miles before the h/g went between cylinder 1 and 2)

I redid cylinder 4 test multiple times. It just wouldn’t go any further even if I was cranking the engine for 10 hours
I then added a teaspoon of engine oil very thin similar to Mobil1, and redid the test. Compression rose to approx 167psi to 168psi. I redid the test after a few minutes and compression only reached 160psi with the oil still in the piston.

This would suggest the problem with this cylinder is the rings - a leak down test will confirm where the problem is.

Then I put everything back and fired up the engine. There was a little white smoke coming from the exhaust and clear colour water. I removed again plug from cylinder 4 to redo the test. I checked to see if there was any smoke coming off the plug hole in the cylinder. There was none. Did the test with the compression tester again and still compression reached only 148psi to 150psi max.

Again, just shows there is a bit of a problem, but I wouldn't say its the end of the engine just yet.

I put everything back again very sadly as I was hoping for something better than this. I fired up the car and left it for 5-10 minutes. I then noticed that the car was smoking like a bitch. White smoke, everywhere!!! The smell was awful. I think it smelled like oil burning. I drove back home 1km and the smell was sweet as the one of the coolant if I am not mistaken.
I took some video of the smoke and that was after my bro came behind my car to light the place up. So it shows small bits of smoke and some water spilled from the exhaust. A few minutes before the video, the neighborhood was wearing gas masks.

this does seem like a problem! With the engine running, and the header tank cap off, are you getting bubbles coming back up through the tank?

Of course, with those compression results, it wouldn't indicate a problem with the cylinders and a h/g however, the turbo uses both water and oil - so could be the fault. It looks like you may have to remove and have checked the turbo and the cylinder head



Edit:

The video's don't look all that bad either, an idling engine will build up condensation and a very short 1k drive wont be enough to clear it - take it for a decent length drive and see if that clears.

[tb303]

thanks for all the replies mate.

so,

1) if i remove the cup from the coolant tank while that car is running the tank will overfill and the water will come out.

2) plug 1 is black, 2 and 3 are a bit black around but the top part is brown, and the 4th one is white it's just not clear in the photo. maybe this will help.



do you mean a valve might have collapsed? how do i check this? before i put the irridium plugs i didn't get these colours on the plugs.

3) how do i find where the problem is with a leak down test?

4) so a broken h/g is not the case here?

5) remove the turbo? is this an easy task? also how do i test it? also cylinder head removal was supposed to be avoided in the case of the h/g being ok.

6) the smoke clears after a good run.

what would you recommend i do first?

[Scoobler]

thanks for all the replies mate.

so,

1) if i remove the cap from the coolant tank while that car is running the tank will overfill and the water will come out.

It shouldn't come out, but the level may rise abit. Also if you were to run without a cap on, then the system will find it hard to regulate its temperature and you will find the temp rising and falling.

If you have a problem with the h/g then you may be able to see bubbles being blown through the water, which you will see in the header tank with the cap off, it shouldn't overflow, but would look like you blowing down a straw in a drink.

2) plug 1 is black, 2 and 3 are a bit black around but the top part is brown, and the 4th one is white it's just not clear in the photo. maybe this will help.



do you mean a valve might have collapsed? how do i check this? before i put the irridium plugs i didn't get these colours on the plugs.

Nope, the valves all see ok - any problems with a valve would have lead to a different compression test result. A possible cause for oil getting into a cylinder is, worn piston rings (which isn't the case as you would have a worse compression result) or valve stem oil seals, these are little rubber seals which stop oil getting down the side of the valve, these do wear and perish over time.

The other cause for the black spark plug could be due to the gap of the spark plug - when you put in the irridums did you check the gap at all? If the gap is too big, the spark would get blown out and you end up the cylinder running rich which overtime leaves carbon. Have a look on:
http://www.spark-plugs.co.uk/pages/t.../diagnosis.htm
From the picture it still doesn't look too wrong.

3) how do i find where the problem is with a leak down test?

A leak down tester blows compressed air into the cylinder. It provides a reading of how much pressure is being put in, and how much the cylinder is loosing. A small amount of loss is normal. But an excessive amount can be heard being blown out. If the rings are worn you would hear it from the oil cap. If the inlet valves are leaking you would hear it from the air filter. If the exhaust valves are leaking you would hear hissing from your exhaust. If your h/g has gone it should blow bubles in the water in the header tank.

4) so a broken h/g is not the case here?

I would say some more testing is needed before you can say for sure. It is possible, but a blown h/g tends to deteriate quickly when its gone between a cylinder and something due to the heat. But the fact you got quite good compression test results would indicate there isn't much leaking.

5) remove the turbo? is this an easy task? also how do i test it? also cylinder head removal was supposed to be avoided in the case of the h/g being ok.

Removing the turbo is definately easier than removing the head. You can't really do much to test the turbo yourself, bar testing the shaft for play, side to side and up and down, there should be very little. If there is alot, specially up and down this indicates a problem with the bearings, due to the speed the shaft spins at, any play will very quickly destroy the oil seals. Over here in the uk there are companies who will check the turbo for you, if something needs doing they will tell you what, they don't tend to charge much. I'm sure you will have some local companies who will offer the same service.

6) the smoke clears after a good run.

In this case, I wouldn't have thought that smoke was too much to worry about. The extra smoke will probably have been the oil you put into the cylinder being burnt off. Oil smoke tends to take along time to disperse to an point where you can't see it any more. Steam will disperse quickly so the 'clouds' don't really linger for long.

what would you recommend i do first?

I would try using the leak down tester first and see if it shows up any faults.
I would then get the coolant system pressure tested (simialr to a leak down test for the cylinders)


Also when you are checking the coolant levels, it should always be when its cool as the level will rise and fall with heat.

Are you sure you have the correct pipes onto the XE rad - if you are using the LET ones and they are streached as the engine rocks whilst driving it might be moving the pipes and the clips aren't sealing so a little coolant is leaking past, but when stationary you aren't seeing anything leaking.

[tb303]

i have the c20xe coolant pipes mate.
also there arent bubbles in the coolant tank as i told you. it overflows as soon as it warms up. is that indicating something?

i will do the leak down test, though i must find me a tester.

if it's cylinder rings or inlet valves or exhaust valves is it needing a rebuild?

[Scoobler]

Yeah a rebuild would be the way to cure them if they are causing too much of a problem.

Sorry miss read your first point. That would seem like there is too much coolant in the tank if it overflows. When cool your tank should be about half full?

How long does it overflow for? Is it alot or just a little? Try letting it overflow, with the car running. if it isn't too much, when its stopped make sure the tank is half full again and put the cap back on. Keep an eye on the temp and let the engine warm up and the fan kick in, watch the level it should settle.
I had an omega 2.5v6 every time I blead the coolant system, I would run it upto temp it would overflow, then it would settle and the level would stay the same.

Another problem, which I had recently, check the turbo return pipe to the coolant tank, the plastic part of the tank where the rubber pipe from the turbo connects on mine melted/wore a hole through and it was leaking coolant, only a small amount, which was being returned from the turbo, the coolant was also doing strange things. It was all cured when I replaced the header tank.

a leak down test would be the best way to go I think. It gives more detailed results than the compression test so should help diagnose the prbolem a bit better.

[tb303]

i replaced the coolant tank last week.

will do a leak down test and keep you posted mate.

can i use the car though? i travel 100km daily.

[Scoobler]

I would - just keep an eye on the temp, and the levels - if they stay in the ok area's and it is a gasket it will only deteriorate and show more symptoms making it easier to spot. If nothing changes then there can't be anything drastically wrong and its possibly a loose coolant pipe or something leaking.

[DAMEscort]

Could the plugs be the wrong heat setting?

[tb303]

Morning guys,

I am surfing the net to buy a leak down tester and a coolant tester.

Concerning the coolant in the tank, please note the following:

1) When i fill the coolant tank i make sure it is in the morning when the coolant is cold, and half the tank where the line is.
2) Sometimes when i am driving the coolant level light comes up on the dash while in the middle of the road and i stop to check. It appears that the coolant level drops under the sensor. Isn't that wrong? Shouldn't the the coolant level rise when warm?
3) With half coolant tank and the the car cold, i fire it up with open tank cap and when it heats up all the water in the tank overflows. It overflows till there is no coolant in the tank. Does this indicate a damaged H/G, or a problematic thermostat, which was very recently replaced?
4) The car idle is very bad now. Not the revs rising and falling but the exhaust. I don't know how to explain this, but the exhaust is shaking the car. It feels that there is someone under the car hitting with a huge hammer.


Besides the coolant probs, i posted in my thread the following:

As soon as I removed the plug from cylinder 4, I noticed smoke coming out of the plug hole.

By the way, my bro who was there says that the smoke was blueish but i can confirm this as i saw it as white, but yet again it was getting dark so i cant be sure. I forgot to smell it though. What a lamer!!!
So any ideas as to why was cylinder 4 smoking when i removed the plug?


Hence, what about the results from the compression tests.
Isn't 13% difference between the cylinders more than the 10% allowed?
What must i do about this except the leak down test?
Do the numbers mean that i cannot drive the car at full speed now?

[!lsx!]

lol

my x16xe has 150psi on 2 3 and 4, but only 45psi on cylinder 1 because of the stem seals. You really wouldn't know anything was wrong unless you knew what to look for, as it seems to drive fine, apart from the performance is lower than it should be and driving it hard causes misfires.

What I'm trying to say is that 13psi will cause little differences to the cars performance, but keep an eye on it getting worse.

[tb303]

lol

my x16xe has 150psi on 2 3 and 4, but only 45psi on cylinder 1 because of the stem seals. You really wouldn't know anything was wrong unless you knew what to look for, as it seems to drive fine, apart from the performance is lower than it should be and driving it hard causes misfires.

What I'm trying to say is that 13psi will cause little differences to the cars performance, but keep an eye on it getting worse.

mate, i edited my post.
it is not 13psi but 20psi.
13% is the difference between 150psi and 170psi.

thanks for the info though.

[tb303]

Could the plugs be the wrong heat setting?

the plugs are the following:

IK series
IK16. IK20. IK22. IK24. IK27. IK31. IK34. IK16G. IK20G. IK22G. IK16L. IK20L
･ Mainly used for cars. ISO type.
･ 14mm dia. X L19mm length type.
･ IK22 and above are for tuned engines, with a spark gap of 0.8mm.
･ IK16G, IK20G, and IK22G have a solid, stainless steel gasket (mainly used with Honda engines).
･ IRIDIUM TOUGH VK16, VK20, and VK22 are also on sale at the same time.
･ IK□L is extended type (spark position 5mm)

[DAMEscort]

Yea good plugs but what ones are you using? That above looks to me like the advert for the whole range . Was just a thought that if you have the wrong grade of plugs then they wouldn't disperse the heat as quick as they should and could of been the reason for them looking to be the wrong colour.

[tb303]

oh sorry mate.

i am using IK22. that's why i cutoff most of the other plugs wherever i could.

[DAMEscort]

sure once of the others with a turbo will confirm but i think they should be ok.