hatchy

I am leaking coolant into the cylinders, but I am not sure where the leak is coming from. How can I tell if it is coming from the headgasket or from the valve seals? I did a compression test and it looked fine. I am not getting oil in the coolant, and no coolant in the oil. But when I start the engine when it is hot, I get about 2-3 sec of white smoke from the tail pipe. But after that, no more smoke.

It is almost like I am leaking coolant into the cylinder only when I shut down the motor after it has reached operating temp.

psi420

A compression test will rarely show a blown headgasket because there is no pressure, well not enough that is.

I would do a leak down test to see if its your valve seals.
If not, then lean toward blown headgasket.

hatchy

Where would I listen when I do a leak down? Is there another way to check? What kind of failure would cause my car to smoke during a hot start? I am leaning toward valve seals, but I need someone to confirm...

Thanks

JimBlake

Wait a minute. You said coolant, right? That has to come from a headgasket or a crack. The valve stem seals would leak oil, not coolant.

How about gaskets at the intake manifold? There's coolant passages there & in the throttle body. Maybe that's leaking into the IM...

If your headgasket was leaking just between coolant & combustion chamber, then the oil wouldn't be involved. I believe there's an analyzer that can sniff your radiator cap to see if there's any combustion gases getting into your coolant.

During a leakdown test, if you hear noises inside the radiator then its leaking between cylinder & coolant. If its leaking at IM gaskets, then the leakdown would be good.



[Modified by JimBlake, 3:58 PM 4/8/2003]

GSRacer1

easiest way to check for blown head gasket is to let your engine cool down or start with a cold engine and open up the radiator cap turn the car on if water starts to splash out your gasket is blown

this happens because when the engine tries to compress the air in the cylinders it escapes through the blown gasket into the coolant line making the coolant spalsh out the radiator

hatchy

Jim, good info, thanks !! That at least narrows it down for me and I can take the valve seals out of the list of possibilities.

Yes, it is definitely coolant. My block has GE sleeves, and I'd be surprised if they cracked at only 15psi, but anything can happen I guess.

What is really confusing me is that I only see white smoke when I restart my car after turning it off for less then 10 mins, and it only smokes during the start (2-3 seconds). Understand why this happens will definitely help me pin point what actually failed.

hatchy

Starting the car when the car is cold and the radiator cap is off doesn't cause a coolant shower... but I would image that it would have to be a pretty big failure of the HG to cause this?

JimBlake

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hatchy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Starting the car when the car is cold and the radiator cap is off doesn't cause a coolant shower... but I would image that it would have to be a pretty big failure of the HG to cause this?</TD></TR></TABLE>

I think if it leaks at all, you'd see some disturbance in the coolant when the cap is off. Combustion gases would bubble into the water jacket, taking up space & making the coolant overflow. I don't know if I'd call it a 'shower'...

hatchy

Thanks Jim, I am going to do a leak down test this weekend, and hopefully that will tell me if it is the IM gasket or not (I really hope that it is, because I don't want to pull the head). Hate to beat this dead horse, but if it isn't the IM gasket, what else could it be (assuming that my HG is okay).

Thanks