Head Gasket.

[Rodriguez]

Ok ladies and gents.  I've got my paranoid head on today.  The chariot is running fine after I replaced the starter yesterday, but I am now worries about me engine. 

Ok symptoms:  Coolant level and temp remains ok and no sign of contamination but seems a liitle pressurised.  Dipstick reveals clean oil but I'm getting a small amount of mayo on the cap. And I know its cold but the white steam from the exhaust seems a little excessive.

Now am I worrying about nowt considering the car's age and the weather we've been having or is there further checks I can do, short of poaching a compression tester from somewhere.


Cheers in advance.  Hope everyone's having a reliable new year

[sidecarphil]

if you got a good amount of antifreeze in the car

take the plugs out see if they are the same colour as your antifreeze

[Conker]

The condensation out of the exhaust is pretty mega at the moment due to the temp. Mine looks like a power station first thing in the morning!! When my headgasket went, I had no mayo, but loads of steam out the back even when the engine was really hot, but the main way I coul tell (excluding the compression test) was that water consumption was huge.  A full coolant tank would only last 30 minutes before it was dry.

If your water level isn't changing, its prob just steam.

[rubjonny]

all sounds perfectly normal to me, the coolant system is designed to pressurise to raise the boiling point, and a bit of mayo is normal when only doing short trips.  bit of  steem from exhaust also normalk, cold air makes it look worse than it is plus water is a natural byproduct of combustion.

[Rodriguez]

Thanks guys


Just finished me second bottle of scotch now, so the demons are silent again

[tobz.]

  Jeez second bottle of scotch finished by 15:30!!! I'd be more concerned about that than my head gasket.

[my white golf]

it all sounds fine to me, i was warming my car up the other morning and scrapping off the ice when a woman walking past said my gosh it looks like its on fire!

[Mk2George]

it all sounds fine to me, i was warming my car up the other morning and scrapping off the ice when a woman walking past said my gosh it looks like its on fire!

Hehe yeah, all sounds familiar to me too, letting mine warm up on a morning to defrost and after about 5 minutes i have trouble finding the car amidst all the steam My old 8v was tha same too - completely normal

[ozegti]

Right, this sounds ok to me then. I pulled my spark plugs a few days ago and they were all dry, but grey in colour. I've had mayo occasionally on the cap, but the main thing is, it's leaking from the T piece with the top hose. Need to sort that out. Might need to change the water pump as well. I'm off to london tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes!

[Ben Lessani]

Dude you should see what I found when I removed my rocker!

Compression testers are only like £20 from Halfords, I bought mine ages ago and thought I'd only ever use it once - its been one of the best diagnostic tools I have owned, I've used it tonnes of times!

I don't reckon my HG is damaged at all, but I did have a torn breather that was probably just sucking in water, along with the fact my airbox was also wet inside!