Think my head gasket's gone

[thecremeegg]

Got nearly home last night and the engine temperature went up to the red zone. Parked it at home and all my coolant has gone.

Checked this morning and under the oil cap its a lovely gold colour

I assume this is head gasket?

 

[jessica_laurie]

Quite possible. Does sound like the symptoms.

 

[thecremeegg]

Yea its not good, need it for work

Gotta find somewhere that'll do it for a decent price in the Bristol area now, been quoted £500

 

[Russ_16v]

do you do many short trips mate? the mayo can come from condensation from short trips

the best thing is get your local garage to pressure test it, nice easy job to show any leaks

 

[thecremeegg]

I do loads of short trips yea, but all my coolant's gone in a flash so I'm pretty sure its the head gasket

 

[iimushroomzii]

Why sure? You might have a coolant leak, which may have caused the loss of coolant which then caused the overheating! Get it to a garage and get it checked out.

 

[thecremeegg]

Well i suppose if you put it that way. Problem is how do I get it to a garage cos i'm not driving it?

 

[Russ_16v]

thats it if you have a coolant leak, it would overheat, though if it has spilt all its coolant the gauage might not have shown it being hot as there would be no water to reg as being hot. Best thing to do is get it towed to a garage, or fill it up wit hwater and run it and see what its like

 

[thecremeegg]

Theres some coolant left in the bottom, probably a centimetre or so. I can put more water in, but do i risk tryin to run it?

 

[Russ_16v]

running it for a short while ie a few mins wont hurt mate, the damage has prob been done, just dont let it get warm as it could warp the head

 

[iimushroomzii]

Top it up with water, and see if it leaks out anywhere.

 

[thecremeegg]

Ok I'll go do that now

 

[-Leigh-]

f**king head gasket failure on a Gallardo!! That's VAG build quality for ya.

 

[thecremeegg]

Right the results -

Poured some water in to the min mark and I could see it glugging away and the level fell to what it was at before. Couldnt see where it was coming out from though. Filled it up to max and watched and it fell a bit then stopped.

I then ran the engine and it was juddering and the whole engine was shaking about wildly. I turned it off and watched the coolant tank, and it started glugging and more coolant went somewhere.

Any ideas?

 

[-Leigh-]

If it's disapearing from the tank, but not appearing on the floor or in the engine, it may be going inside the engine. What colour is the oil if you pull the dipstick out?

 

[Russ_16v]

yup, but its weird its going out that fast, normally a head gasket will leak from a water jacket to an oil way, or into a cylinder, but not that common for it to be a big enough crack to be able to see the water disapearing is quite weird

 

[thecremeegg]

Just looked again and the coolant is below minimum again, though not quite as low as it was earlier. In answer to ur question xzibit, the dipstick oil is black as per usual.

 

[Fred@BTM]

what car/engine?

 

[thecremeegg]

1999 Clio 1.4 8v

 

[Phill90]

Same as mine but mine 2000, exactly same symptoms as me engine shaking car struggling a lot of the time, was quoted everywhere around £500

Got it done for £250 in the end, including a cambelt changed and the head skimmed.

 

[thecremeegg]

Nice price! Wish I could find somewhere around here that would get anywhere near that!

 

[Phill90]

It was some chap starting up his own business proper top bloke shame you cant get your car to wolverhampton

 

[James.f]

get some Rad-weld fella, honest to say that happend to me begining of this year, at first i was thingin head gasket, but as i kept toppin it up every morning/night, then had a spray of water from the radiator, but bare this in mind i didnt get any leaks on the floor etc, so headgasket again came to though, bought rad-weld then guess what, Its stopped havnt had any problems since 3months now, but i do still cary a 3L robinson's orange bottle full of Anti Freeze mixed with water in the boot,

worth a try

 

[thecremeegg]

get some Rad-weld fella, honest to say that happend to me begining of this year, at first i was thingin head gasket, but as i kept toppin it up every morning/night, then had a spray of water from the radiator, but bare this in mind i didnt get any leaks on the floor etc, so headgasket again came to though, bought rad-weld then guess what, Its stopped havnt had any problems since 3months now, but i do still cary a 3L robinson's orange bottle full of Anti Freeze mixed with water in the boot,

worth a try

Hmm spose it is worth a try, cant hurt i guess. Shame I cant buy any at the moment as the bank cancelled my card due to fraudulant transactions today

 

[Phill90]

Ive also heard good things about that rad weld

 

[Russ_16v]

Id stay away from the stuff, if there is a problem then fix it, dont put in something like that, its only stopping the problem for now

 

[thecremeegg]

So do you still think its the head gasket then not just a coolant leak?

 

[Russ_16v]

still cant be sure mate, too hard to diagnose over the net

 

[MarcoB]

My head gasket went it and it was pretty much the same as your symptoms. I kept driving it and it burnt more fuel than water in 100 metres haha

 

[Struggler]

need it complession tested,
if its so juddery on idle, it could be that ur water is leaking into a cylinder and causing it not to fire,

compression test will answer everything.

 

[thecremeegg]

Ok cheers guys, I'll pass on this info to the garage, see what they say

Thanks for the responses

 

[Vish]

My sisters clio had temp light come on and no coolant. Only difference was steam was coming out from the bonnet and loads had leaked from the top of the coolant lid. You sure yours hasn't leaked at all?

Could it be that your coolant lid was not on tight enough so water leaked but during your journey? Not sure if the coolant lid is the reason but I had the car 3 yrs with no problems, then one day my dad topped up the coolant and a couple of days later, a lot suddenly leaked out. The lid wasn't as tight as I normally had it and think the car has been fine since I topped it up again and tightened it a lot, will check tomorrow.

 

[caister]

When my head gasket went on my last car it didn't use the ammount of water that your describing and when I changed the gasket it was one of the worst ive seen. However I did drive around for 2000 miles knowing the head gasket had gone but just kept topping the water up!

 

[sammyhale22]

Run the engine for a bit, remove all your spark plugs and check to see if there is any water on them!! simple, you will tell straight away if there is water in your cylinder chambers doing this, obviously when the engine is hot, you might even get steam coming out when you remove the plugs like my brothers clio when his gasket went, incidentally his idle went shite too and if you give it gas it sounds like its running on 3 cylinders, this is a sign that one of your cylinders has water in it. Also another sign is thick whiteish or grey smoke coming out the exhaust.
Also look for air being pushed into the coolant top up tank, serious bubbling. Thats compression escaping into the coolant.
Back in the day when i had my track swift gti my head gasket blew 3 times on that, but that was due to serious detonation because i was running a 12.5:1 compression lol.