Having had the radiator replaced and my 1.1 Sporting working fine for two months, suddenly the temperature has started increasing for no apparent reason. No problem with a water leak - the reservoir is full. Water pump is working fine.

When on a long journey yeasterday suddenly the temperature went up dramatically and I just had enough time to get off the motorway before it reached red (although subsequently it hit the mark )

When I checked the radiator it was cold and afterwards the water reservoir was empty (although there wasn't a pool of water under the car when I stopped).

Having limped to the nearest town, I found a local mechanic who checked the thermostat (which had apparently been removed ). In any case, he said it didn't seem to be the problem.

They revved the car and as the temperature was increasing he could see some white/blue emissions from the exhaust. We had already checked the oil access point and the oil itself and it showed no sign of being being contaminated, ruling out a head gasket problem.

He opened the reservoir and the water gushed out but was cold. He said the problem was the cylinder head.

Does this sound right? Having had problems with wrong diagnosis' before, am a bit sceptical. He said it could be repaired but the cost would be at least 600 pounds or more.

Up to the point of overheating the car was working perfectly although I did notice a bit of sluggishness on the journey. Could this be the symptom of "something waiting to happen"? As the car has had a few temperature problems during the past year (due to bad diagnosis' and crap mechanics here in Spain) could this have been the final straw?

Having paid over 900 euros in repairs in August, is it worth paying 600 pounds (or euro equivalent) to repair it again - can the cylinder head be repaired or should it be replaced? The car is 1998 "R" reg with only 91k on the clock. It should have plenty of life left yet.

Any advice would be appreciated on diagnosis etc

Many thanks!

You could try bleeding the air out of the cooling system. If the fan did not cut in when the engine got to around 90deg then there may be a fault within the electrical curcuit, which consists of the radiator fan switch, the fan itself, or a bad earth connection. If you lost a large amount of water when you overheated and you have now refilled you will need to bleed the system of air, then let it tick over, when the temp guage reads around 90deg the electrical fan should cut in and out again as air is drawn through the radiator. If you are loosing water and cant see where from it could well be a head gasket problem.

Good luck.

Sounds like the head gasket has gone again, in a similar way to mine. Was it skimmed last time it was repaired, what caused it to fail last time - was that repaired?

arc said:

Driving back from Bolton today, im watching the temperature gauges. Oil is cooler than usual, around 50c, and water temperature wasnt registering. Odd. So i turned the heaters off and let the engine have some heat back, oil temp begins to climb, water temp starts to register, hits around 70 and then drops off again. How very odd. Hit a slight hill on the motorway and then it starts loosing power, as my speed and revs are dropping, water temp is climbing. GREAT. i know what that means.. engine off and abrupt stop on the hard shoulder, heaters on, rad fan override on, pop the bonnet, but before i do i see the temp still rising, it peaked arond 120c and then sat there.

Looked under the bonnet and there is waterhose off. Had the car not lost power i'd happily convince myself that it was just a pipe coming off leading to a slight overheat, but it didnt play out that way. I walked to the services i'd just past, bought 4.5l of Buxton Spring water and walked back to the car. It had cooled down by now. Filled her. Reattached the hose. Left the expansion cap off and fired her up! ROUGH AS... with bubbles and exhaust fumes coming out the expansion tank

Click to expand...

Once i got the head off, it was clear to see that the combustion chamber was leaking into the waterways.



You can see the darkened bits left behind by the exhaust squeezing through;



It is the exhaust doing that that causes massive pressure in the cooling system, and will blow the water out even when cold. There is nothing else i can think of that would cause that.

So at the very least you have a dead head gasket, at worst a cracked head. In the UK you'd get a new head for peanuts, and the job wouldnt be costing more than around £250 really.

A lot of modern cars now have plastic impellers on the water pump. They do one of two things, either expand and spin on the shaft, or break up, therefore pumping no water whatsoever.

I had this on a Skoda Octavia VRS. Do the 1.1 OHC engines have a plastic impeller?

You also mention that there was no thermostat in the engine?? Sounds like someone may have had a problem before??

Good luck with the fix.

Head gasket failure doesn't always mean between the water way and the oil.

In your case I think compression from the cylinder is pressurising the water system.

Refill and bleed properly and check again.

In the Uk a head job is only about £300, £600 sounds really excessive.

Cheers

PD

ps a hand job is cheaper

Thanks so much for the suggestions. The car is with the (hopefully trustworthy) mechanics so we'll see what the verdict is tomorrow.