Head gasket failure.

[s2_bo]

Im in Germany at the moment so a long way from home.
This morning i was driving the car and all a sudden loads of steam pored out of the bonnet. I pulled over and opened the bonnet.

The header tank cap had worked its way lose and was chucking out loads and loads of water.

I waited for a while, topped up the water and tried to bleed the coolant system. It was working fine up to about 90c when lots of pressure pushed most of the water out of the expansion tank again. I also noticed a large amount of bubbles from the bleed screw on the rad.

I tried this a few times with the same thing happening each time.

On top of that there is also plenty of white smoke out the exhaust combined with splashes of water..


Im pretty sure that the HG has failed and that cylinder compression is pressurizing the coolant system. This must have made the cap leak in the first place.

If i switch the engine off, let out pressure form expansion tank, switch engine on again for a short while it builds a little pressure on the bottle. Not much but some...


Lets hope the ADAC can flat bed me home...

[Christophski]

Dude. Not good sorry to hear

[driftin jo]

If you need to drive it to get it home you can just drive it with the header tank cap loose so that it doesn't pressurize the coolant , you will need plenty of water with you but it will not loose water until unless you stop in traffic , obviously just cruse it and switch the engine off if you have to sit in traffic for more than 30 seconds . The best way is to do what I did and do you journey in the middle of the night so no traffic and can get to the ferry for the first crossing in the morning so less traffic UK side . I did this coming home from Portugal years ago and lost very little coolant, also you don't get as much coolant into the oil / cylinders when the coolant is not pressurized.

[Rusty]

Bad luck on that one Bo. I did a sticky thread on bleeding the coolant system, worth checking that it's done right just in case. Good luck getting it back, not the worst job in the world on an S2 but still, not ideal.

[Thuppu]

If you need to drive it to get it home you can just drive it with the header tank cap loose so that it doesn't pressurize the coolant , you will need plenty of water with you but it will not loose water until unless you stop in traffic , obviously just cruse it and switch the engine off if you have to sit in traffic for more than 30 seconds . The best way is to do what I did and do you journey in the middle of the night so no traffic and can get to the ferry for the first crossing in the morning so less traffic UK side . I did this coming home from Portugal years ago and lost very little coolant, also you don't get as much coolant into the oil / cylinders when the coolant is not pressurized.

Wow, that sounds like fun. My nervs would't hold on that trip. But this method feels reasonable.


Well, hope bo safely arrives home with the car.

[JP]

Other options is a couple of bottles of block seal from a local petrol station to keep you going. Also stay of boost as this amplifies the problem. As for driving with the radiator cap loose this helps too.

[220bhp]

If you are going to drive the car, do not drive it with the cap of, as it will give you a false reading on the temperature gauge and the water will boil, the only way to read engine temperature then will be the oil gauge and when it climbs it climbs very quickly.
If you really need to drive the car,make sure you have a good supply of water and do it little and often and let the car cool down. If its pressurizing the system it will blow water out of the header tank, plus some through the engine,it depends on how far you need to drive it,as water and oil soon mix. best of luck.

[driftin jo]

If you are going to drive the car, do not drive it with the cap of, as it will give you a false reading on the temperature gauge and the water will boil, the only way to read engine temperature then will be the oil gauge and when it climbs it climbs very quickly.
If you really need to drive the car,make sure you have a good supply of water and do it little and often and let the car cool down. If its pressurizing the system it will blow water out of the header tank, plus some through the engine,it depends on how far you need to drive it,as water and oil soon mix. best of luck.

Your talking out of your backside, I'm talking from experience not theory , I drove 1400 miles back from Portugal with the cap loose, it will only boil over when you pull up not when cruising along.
55mph offers good cooling air flow with minimal fuel burned so less heat to get rid of , also it is worth wile running the heater on hot with the windows down if necessary , you can also wire the rad fan to a switch you can turn on when you like as you slow or stop in traffic , I didn't do this but would have done if I had needed to.

[s2_bo]

Cheers for your comments guys,

Is it ok to use block seal? Will that not block up the turbo water lines too?

I think i will do it by driving back at night to avoid traffic like suggested.

Will keep this thread updated.
Cheers.
Bo

[prj]

Basically what driftin jo said.
Even if you run into traffic, set your climate control to "HI" and the fans to maximum and open the windows.

Bit of a bitch if it is raining, but it should be enough to keep your car cool.
Also, unplugging the N75 connector and accelerating very slowly (to not get even spring boost) will help.

[driftin jo]

One more thing that is useful, I just remembered, is when driving if you have to lift off the throttle then dip the clutch and or put it in neutral if for a long period such as going down a hill.
What you do by doing this is avoid over run high vacuum that you get when you back off the throttle , the reason is so you don't encourage the cylinders to suck in the water as this is the part of driving that will get most of the water into cylinders and the oil. In this instance your boost gauge is also your friend as you can monitor vacuum and drive were you get the least.
I think this concludes the driving with a foooked head casket course unless anybody has any other tips that have no been covered in this thread .
Hope all goes well anyway and keep us posted if / when you can about how it goes.

[paul.m]

sorry to hear about your troubles mate. If it makes you feel any better this is a picture of my car last week. Replaced the cracked head for a 7a one with my cams, valves etc. Steel head gasket, ARP studs. You can easily spend over £1000 on parts fixing it.