Yet another 2.1 head gasket blown!

[SteveLP]

My 2.1 diesel decide to burst a water pipe on the M4 a few months ago and now (presumably because of overheating) it has thrown a wobbly and burst the headgasket. Lots and lots of bubbles in the header tank water.
I don't have the time, resources or expertise to do this job myself. Right now I don't even have a garage to put it in, it's been sitting on my mates fron drive for the last month and now it should be gone.
The quotes I had to get the head gasket done were in the region of £1000, which is just a ...bit... to much to lay out on an old car.
So it is probably for spares and then scrap, a shame really since it is one of the last year 2000 models complete with side airbags.
So unless anyone has a cheaper idea on how to solve the head gasket problem....
Cheers
Steve.

[captainhaddock]

Just out of curiosity, which water hose blew? You could consider a gasket sealer that apparently can do miracles but I have no experience with it.

[robertmnorton]

Hi Steve, to try to put a more optimistic slant on this, if the temp gauge didn't top out, and you stopped quickly enough, it may be possible that after repair/replacement of the failed hose that bleeding didn't remove all trapped air. If convinced the head is cooked it maybe worth running a gas in coolant test to remove any nagging doubts.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/FX-53-HEAD-GASK ... b#shpCntId" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
You may get lucky.
robertm

[White Exec]

Any white smoke coming from the exhaust pipe? If yes, then it's a sign that antifreeze coolant (glycol) is getting into one of the pots, and burning. Glycol produces copious white 'smoke' when heated/combusted.

Any oil visible in the coolant/header tank?

Does coolant smell of exhaust?

Is the cooling system becoming over-pressurised, or throwing out water?

If you crank the engine without allowing it to fire, is the cranking even (4 equal compressions) or lumpy (one compression is over-easy) ?

....All the above are signs of a HG gone. Hopefully not, though.

[russ92xmsed]

Mines blown from exhaust to coolant and spits out the coolant. But whilst driving... No I didn't do it for long and no overheating,... it holds on to it, with the header tank cap loose. It's only when it's idling with the cap on, does it misbehave. No white smoke from the exhaust at all, tiny little droplets of water in the oil, I mean tiny, but no real fluid swappage. I believe Will said 2.1s don't tend to swap fluids.
Of course there are a few ways a head gasket can go and I am certainly no expert.


Sorry to hear it's done this Steve. A shame too being a later model. I'm fixing mine as I have a spare engine all ready to go in it.. When I can get it in the garage. I share your pain!

[Dieselman]

Head gaskets nearly always blow into the coolant due to corrosion. The compression pressure blows through, so there won't be any admittance into the cylinder.

[White Exec]

Have had previous experience with a 1.9 XUD with a blown HG. This both spat coolant out, and also sucked/allowed (presumably on the downstroke) coolant into a pot, and produced vast clouds of white exhaust whenever the throttle was opened. Same effect as a stage smoke machine....and using the same glycol. Combusted glycol antifreeze also has a very distinctive 'sweet' smell at the tailpipe. 2.1 is essentially an XUD, no?

Assuming, that is, there is antifreeze in the system...

[russ92xmsed]

That it is Chris. Strange how a failed head gasket can have quite varied symptoms. Mine refuses to contain it's coolant and yet not a whiff out the exhaust. I might try and investigate sometime the headgasket when the engine is out the car. It would be good to fix it up for any possible future uses.

[White Exec]

Quite right - variable. My list above was just some of the symptoms of a failing HG, which might suggest that Steve's trouble lay there.
You're right about the pressure cap.....whether or not it is down tight will affect a bundle of things. If pressure builds up in the cooling sysem, it will encourage coolant to get into a cylinder (and maybe smoke white), but it will also not allow compression leaking into the cooling system to escape so readily (in the form of bubbles) resulting in coolant possibly being thrown out under pressure, if the leak is bad enough.
Also accept that an atmo diesel operates differently from a turbo, where presumably the cylinder pressure is lower on the induction stroke (no turbo pumping air into it), and the likelihood of coolant being sucked into a bore is therefore greater.
Have also had HG failure caused by "nothing more" than the corner O-ring (oilway supply to head) getting baked, hard and leaky. May or may not leak oil to the outside world (it's very close to the edge of the block), but can leak into the neighbouring bore (smoke), or into a nearby waterway (oil in coolant). Had this O-ring failure on both the BX19RD and the 2.5.

[Peter.N.]

2.1 head gaskets usually fail at about 150k miles, I have had several go. As mentioned its usually due to corrosion, the last one I did nearly fell apart when I removed it. Its not an easy job and you need plenty of time, the only upside is that the modern gaskets are laminated steel and don't seem to fail. I think the Hdi's use the same and mine have done 240k and 200k on the original gaskets.

Peter