I'd say its hydrolocked, especially with the symptoms of water loss and loads of smoke before parking up. If you're lucky it's the head gasket. Unlucky and it could be a cracked head.

Remove the plugs and try turning the engine on the starter - don't do this inside a garage or with anybody standing in front of the car because the contents of the cylinder get launched skywards at a hell of a speed and will shower down over everything within about 50 feet.

Jim Haseltine said:

I'd say its hydrolocked, especially with the symptoms of water loss and loads of smoke before parking up. If you're lucky it's the head gasket. Unlucky and it could be a cracked head.

Remove the plugs and try turning the engine on the starter - don't do this inside a garage or with anybody standing in front of the car because the contents of the cylinder get launched skywards at a hell of a speed and will shower down over everything within about 50 feet.

Click to expand...

I had a guy in a transit grind to a halt outside my house one day while I worked on my car, a plumb of smoke behind him. Turned out he had over filled the oil. Gave him the same basic advice and warned him not to stand in front of it - in fact it was a good idea to hold something up to catch the oil as it came out. The driver had a passenger who duly held up a big dust sheet while the driver cranked the engine over with the glow plugs removed. Unfortunately the passenger decided to take a peek over the top of the sheet at the wrong moment...he ended up covered in oil, absolutely drenched in it! It was all I could do to not roll on the floor laughing my socks off. It wasn't even like I hadn't warned him!

i did this to a old busted festa engine to see what would happen. timeing belt snapped and bent the valves. dad replaced the belt but the engine was dead. he gave the car to be for something to mess around with. and i got it running (bad) again.
i found out that if you over fill a diesel engine with oil it starts to run on it and you cant stop it. heh hand over the air intake is the only way.

fun to wach though.

engine was a ford 1.8 non turboed diesel.

Hi everyone UPDATE
got car this morning .removed spark plugs. turned her over and water spurted out of cylinder on left as you look into the engine. My Mate got soaked ! once all the water was out I returned spark plugs and fired her up for just a few seconds to check everything else ok. Sounded great.So conclusion at this stage has to be head gasket,got a quote from local engineering firm of £30 or £ 40 to skim head,so thankfully it is not looking too bad.Thanks for all your sound advice. I'll now check on the forum on how to do a head gasket. Should be a fun way of spending the christmas holidays.

Its easy enough dude took me a week to get mine running again thanks to bad plugs, ruined tappets, loosing a shim and bits and bobs but mines the 899

The 1108 is a piece of pie to work as well

hi everyone update. took plugs out loads of water came out of no1 or cylinder on left as you look in the engine bay. Just taken it all apart and looks like head gasket on this cylinder gone. Just one question . the tops of cylinders look similar to the one's in the guide. However there seems to be a slight impression of the valves in the top of all the cylinders is this normal. I think I can make out the same in the guide photos but just want to check this is ok.thanks

Im an idiot .I meant to write impression of valves on top of pistons! sorry

Yep. That's normal.

thanks for that .Ive ordered all the parts and taken head off to be skimmed.This forum is brilliant I would never have had the confidence to do this with out the guides and help from you lot Thanks

hi got a couple more questions if anyone can help. REFITTING WATER PUMP do I use the paper gasket that came with pump or the blue locktite stuff in guide or do I use both?REFITTING ROCKER COVER GASKET If it is an after market gasket kit do i need glue in the corners as in the guide on here or is it ok with out as some have suggested?Any ideas or experiences would be great
Thanks

Hi

Use paper gasket, with instant gasket (bath tub calk aka RTV rubber) smeared sparingly both sides of paper, do up bolts and nut with fingers leave overnight (in cold), do up tight in am.

Noel

ALL DONE . I've just taken the car for a good test run and all is now fine.
Changed head gasket,thermostat, water pump,cam belt and alternator drive belt.I could not have done it without the help of the guides and the answers given on this forum. I took the advice of removing head lamp, the bumper and lowering the radiator,this really helped with lower exhaust manifold studs and general access. I nearly forgot to line up the little pip on the outer crank pulley that drive's the alternator drive belt .I got a bit confused with the cam belt as the white marks on the belt don't come back in line ,but the marks on the pullyies do. I also had a complete melt down when I ran the engine up to temperature and smoke started appearing everywhere. I panicked and thought I must have got it all wrong.After a few minutes this cleared.I guess it was just any excess sealant burning of. Also exhaust seemed a bit smokey at first but after a good run all looks great. Thanks to all for your help. Just one more question. I read somewhere on here that head gaskets don't just go there is normally a reason. What could that be? Or by having changed thermostat and water pump have I covered everything? The car has done 66k .Is that pretty good for one of these before a head gasket ?
ENGINE MANAGEMENT LIGHT ON . Will this clear itself ? or does the fact that it is still on mean I still have a problem?

Just check carefully for leaks. Most obvious -- but difficult to spot -- one is from the O ring where the water rail enters the water pump -- crawl under car with engine running and up to temp.

Try and clear the EML by removing (and re-attaching) the battery -ive. Sometimes a blown HG will take out the lambda sensor (scrappy) but jump to no conclusions yet.

I just removed the negative terminal from the battery and will replace it soon.I will check for leaks in the morning.One thought though.Is it worth buying one of those fault code readers off ebay ? I have a vw t4 as well is it possible to get one to read codes on both? I know nothing about this modern wizardry! It seems sensible though if I'm fixing the cars myself. But do they work? if so which is the best one to buy?

Can't remember if your car is MPI or SPI. If SPI, not a hope in hell. If MPI, it should work (but note that some readers find VWs problematic).

pretty certain my car is mpi .its yreg 2001. just checked a photo on here and it's an MPI for sure

My mate came round with fault code reader. p0300 random multiple cylinder misfire detected appeared twice and p0130 02 sesor circuit bank 1 sensor 1. He cleared the codes. we started her up and no light. I guess if the light stays off the faults were relating to the head gasket going ?

Possibly. Just see if they re-appear.

UPDATE. I 've driven about 400 miles since the repair. Car runs great,however there is a problem in that the engine light has on 4 occasions flashed for about ten seconds.I've just backed off on the throttle and the light has disappeared. I tend to drive quite slowly and rarely go over 60/65 in the car. Any ideas anyone?