Technical head gasket

[kingfisher62]

i have an expansion chamber full of oil ,its not the oil cooler , there are no bubbles coming through the chamber which im told indicates a head gasket issue the engine sounds ok , no smoke , The thing is its had an egr issue for a while which i havnt addressed properly the vale was very badly clogged for a long time eventualy i changed it but the fault code came up sayin egr excesive flow, i left it for a long time anyway now the water is full of oil could this be anything to do with the egr at all , have i ballsed up the engine or are the two issues unconected

 

[Andoo]

The EGR is not connected to cooling or oil.

Oil in the coolant tank is almost certainly gasket related as the oil pressure is so much higher than the coolant pressure, so it's a one way street, oil only....

It's a very common occurrence for a head gasket to fail, sometimes caused by lack of proper coolant (if there was a leak and the system topped up with water alone, then this can have a detrimental effect on the gasket).

Also, lack of oil changes don't help. As it ages, oil collects all manner of nasty's in the form of acids which also attack weaker components, such as gaskets.

However, I am not suggesting you didn't look after the car, sometimes they were just manufactured with a small weakness that eventually shows a few years down the line.

The head gasket is the weakest link in the chain. It's designed to give way rather than damage the head itself.

I would, however, double check the oil cooler isn't at fault!

I had to change a whole engine because the driver was convinced the head gasket was gone, when it was in fact the oil cooler. He drove it to destruction when the oil finally purged out of the cooler and ran the bearings.