Head Gasket?

[VWDino]

Right..... My 1.6l Driver has a little problem. It's using water, blowing white smoke and has evidence of water in the oil. From this I'm concluding that the head gasket has given up the ghost. Not having experienced this before, do you think I am right in this assumption?
Next question, if so what are the pitfalls when trying to sort this? I'm going down the route of sorting it myself with a little help. What do I need? I'm guessing the head gasket, head bolts, oil, oil filter, coolant, rocker cover gasket, anything else? How long should it take to sort? The haynes manual makes it sound fairly straight forward (as usual)..... having replaced the camshaft before this sounds like the hardest part? Also how do you get the head checked for warping?

Sorry about all the questions..... just really annoyed that this has happened to me now! 

[herbster]

sounds about right what you suspect, you got the right idea for putting it back together, might be worth you gettting a set of valve seals too and seating your valves with a bit of paste and a sucky spinney tool! As long as you do all the right things it ain't too hard, would'nt worry about any warp in my experience pretty solid heads, don't be shy on the tools if you use ham tools to take it apart you could snap something! pretty easy job you'll feel great when you done it and go for the start up and it roars away 1st time! Just lock the engine in the correct positions or atleast mark it up for refitting. Use Vw bolts if you really want confidence when you do the head, they crack against the ally when you torqing down - 'scary'.

[golfmk2boy]

Similar to my problem mate...

I am swapping engine out and gonna rebuild my other one with carbs i think.

Mine was using loads of water, smoke out the back weasnt too bad.... but I just couldnt get it running right.  The mixture was pants!

[dubninja]

Use Vw bolts if you really want confidence when you do the head, they crack against the ally when you torqing down - 'scary'.

Yeah, i managed to strip the threads in one of the head bolts on mine, was the worse feeling in the world when that let go , lol. Just make sure you do them up as per the manual in the correct order and correct stages

[maaarcooose]

I'm just gearing up to this the exact same job and I picked up a full gasket set from a local parts supplier.

Was £12 for the head gasket on it's own or £25 for a set with head, rocker cover gasket, valve seals, water pump gasket and about 10 others.
I'm sure I'll work out what they're all for when I take it apart.

!m!