Garage talk. or a load of Bull

[popes]

Had some head work done apparently there was evidence of the headgasket failing, but on the report he has said there is also evidence of "steaming" what is steaming I have googled it and all it brings up is a base ball team! can anyone enlighten me on what Steaming is:banghead:

 

[Dan@M.A.D]

Excessive steam coming form the tailpipe

 

[TheEvilGiraffe]

Why didn't you ask them while you were in the garage !?

What head work were you having done :S

 

[popes]

The car was towed to the garage because the oil had gone, I was informed that the head gasket had gone, which was the reason the oil had gone, never heared this Steaming term before, by the way I had no signs that this had happened except a noiser engine.

 

[JBC27]

Random shot in the dark but I was driving my old mans Metro a looong time ago now when the head gasket went and f**k loads of steam was coming out of the bonnet.
When my rad went late last year and the symptoms were overheating and steam coming out the engine bay someone suggested a head gasket fail. Basically if your head gasket goes, coolant gets on hot metal and it evapourates as steam, that might be what they meant...

I'd be really interested to hear what someone knowledgeable on here thinks to the explanation that a forked head gasket caused all the oil to be used up. In my one experience of a head gasket going the coolant all escaped and the engine overheated long before the oil would have been burnt up.

 

[Dan519]

is this a 1.2 16v? I bet it's got mayo under the oil cap and they're saying thats a blown headgasket

 

[Daniel]

Awfulthentique's are 8v Danny.

(If that makes any difference?)

 

[Chip-mk1]

Random shot in the dark but I was driving my old mans Metro a looong time ago now when the head gasket went and f**k loads of steam was coming out of the bonnet.
When my rad went late last year and the symptoms were overheating and steam coming out the engine bay someone suggested a head gasket fail. Basically if your head gasket goes, coolant gets on hot metal and it evapourates as steam, that might be what they meant...

I'd be really interested to hear what someone knowledgeable on here thinks to the explanation that a forked head gasket caused all the oil to be used up. In my one experience of a head gasket going the coolant all escaped and the engine overheated long before the oil would have been burnt up.

Blown head gasket if its gone from the oil way to the combustion chamber can easily use your oil up.

Bit of an extreme example but I was trial fitting a new engine into my nova as I decided to convert from the previous calibra turbo engine to a Saab turbo one, I didnt want to spend money on building a big spec saab engine initially so to make sure it would work I just fitted an old snotter of an engine to use so that I could make all the engine mounts up etc. And then I figured while it was in there before I took it out and binned to fit a rebuilt one I may as well just fit a massive turbo, and a big set of injectors and crank the boost up on the one thats in it and remap it to see what I could get out of it just for a bit of a laugh really as it was disposable.
Was making probably somewhere in the 450-500bhp region or so with over 2 bar through it from a GT35R turbo when the corroded 20 year old head gasket decided that enough was enough with that sort of pressure in it and it broke through from the combustion chamber to the oilway, didnt lose any water but lost plenty of oil.

If you look really closely in this picture, I think you might just about be able to make out where some of the oil went, lol

The head gasket serves mutliple purposes.

It keeps the coolant and oil seperate, it keeps the oil and combustion chambers seperate, it keeps the water and the combustion chambers seperate, and it keeps the combstion chambers in neighbouring cylinders seperate. You will get TOTALLY different symptoms for the gasket failing between different parts.
If it goes between two chambers for example you wont lose any oil or coolant at all, but will be massive down on power and it will idle like a tractor.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Awfulthentique's are 8v Danny.

(If that makes any difference?)

Some engines in cold weather especially suffer from condensation internally, this appears as mayo on the cap and makes people think their gasket is gone, 205 gtis for example are famous for it.

Also some engines with a modine (oil / water heat exhchanger) can have a rupture there that makes it look like the gasket has gone because they join the oil and water together, vectra V6 for example.

 

[The Dominator]

alot of the vag's suffer from this as well due to poor breathing i no alot of people that think there head is gone