Head Gasket

[bluenose]

yeah it is mates rates! lol. Was told if i went through a garage it would cost between 500 and 800 as it's a large job on a williams.
The lad i bought the car off said he had taken it to a garage and they had told him it was starting to go. I got the car because it was real cheap and i knew i could get the HG done fairly cheap and end up with a bargain Williams! It drove fine all the way home (80-90 miles) with no smoke from the exhaust. The only sign i can find that the head gasket is going is the water in the header tank is slightly milky. The only other problem is that the idle is slightly erratic when the car is cold but fine when it is warm and dont think this is related in any way?!
Cheers for all the help aswell! much appreciated!

[summeh]

Sounds like you got a bargain there then.

Milky water sounds like exhaust gases mixing into the water, I THINK. If this is the case a garage can do a test and let you know for sure!

Idle problem will be down to your ISCV, try taking it off and giving it a good clean... very helpful thread around with all the idle problems/fixes, do a search to find it.

[rt_blackpool]

bluenose, do urself a favour, get your car back, and on the way home stop by ur local halfrauds (or car spares shop) and get ones of these......

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/s...tegoryrn_31477

its a good piece of kit, and for the sake of £18.99 it will help diagnose if anything major is up before you even take the head to pieces.

[bluenose]

I've still got the car, i'm just going by what the lad that sold it to me said. And i was slightly alarmed when the guy that's gonna be fixing it started going on about cracked blocks! lol. I'll pick one up anyway cuz its the type of thing that will come in handy! Cheers for the advice guys! :D

[2 live]

and if hes got a valver.....cheap to buy a 2.0 with cracked block ;)




seriously thio mate.these engines are bulletproof. take a lot of hammer and misuse. a cracked block would be very unlikely.

spare blocks are always handy to have tho....as u say.

[Patrick_g46]

bluenose, do urself a favour, get your car back, and on the way home stop by ur local halfrauds (or car spares shop) and get ones of these......

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/s...tegoryrn_31477

its a good piece of kit, and for the sake of £18.99 it will help diagnose if anything major is up before you even take the head to pieces.

how does that work mate?

[Coops]

compression tester, whip out spark plugs, bung that down each plug well in turn and turn engine over on starter to check compression is strong and equal across all cylinders. if not then u got a problem!

[bluenose]

I'll pick one up anyways and have a look and report back with my findings! lol. :D

[number1]

take it away from the garage, do a compression test first, hopefully they should all be even readings look at the plugs under a magnifiying glass and see if theres any brown spots on the plug, 3rd thing to do, go to a garage who know what there doing, and have a tool that can pressurise the water, (have one at work but im not sure the actual name!) this will tell if you have a leak as it will lose pressure, may cause a thermostat gasket or water pump to show itself as leaking, we did it on a rover k-series the other day, amazing piece of kit

Dave

[summeh]

aye, when you do the comp test, compression should rise to about 160psi within 3 or 4 strokes of the piston.

If compression goes down between strokes, thats a HG failure iirc. Haynes gives you a good "how to" with a comp tester to test for various different things such as worn rings, HG failure, knackered valves, etc.