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Engine troubles

773 views 7 replies 4 participants last post by  marks152 
#1 ·
I think a little back story is needed for you guys to understand what is going on with my car.

A couple of weeks ago my water pump's bearings went out and it proceeded to eat itself from the inside. I wasn't sure exactly what was making the grinding sound until a couple days later when my engine overheated and I took it into my shop on base.

Sure enough the water pump was completely shot so I ordered a new one. I fixed it and got it all back together. When I started it up, it ran fine for about 30 seconds before I started getting back pressure into my coolant reservoir. Almost like the thermostat is working in reverse.

I'm just trying to diagnose what the problem could be. Could it possibly be a blown head gasket from when the car over-heated?

Thank you all,

Josh
 
#3 ·
my dad had a problem with his about 2 months ago, he was driving the car and it develped a very slight misfire at low revs, when we investigated we found the water a touch low, there was no oil present in the water and the oil looked perfect - well a bit dirty and needed a change, when starting the car from cold it idled for about 3 min perfect them started to ever so slightly misfire, on removing the coolant cap it was pressurised, this lead me to beleive head gasket failure, i would not have expected it to be presurinsed after 5 min and the coolant bubbling when the car was revved, i removed the head and true to my word, the HG had failed, it was the smallest blow in a HG ive seen, the piston was spotlessly clean were the water had cleaned it, lucky enough the engine had never been overheated, i had the head checked and it wasnt warped, i replaced the gasket and bolts and rebuilt it, the car has ran perfect since the rebuild and the pressurising of the coolant bottle disapeared until the engine was upto temp,
 
#5 ·
Rapid pressurisation of the header tank (within 30 seconds from startup) and bubbles are a pretty sure gauge of a gasket failure in my experience - although the failure method does tend to depend on the specific engine. Some just "milk" the oil, others send an oil slick into the water; others just misfire! The more modern an engine, the higher possibility of the bubble trace though.
 
#6 ·
Phil-
That is exactly what is happening, within 15-30 seconds it bubbles and over-pressurizes. Oh, and this is a '97 9000 2.3L Turbo. Probably should have mentioned that in the first post.

Now that I'm pretty positive that this is a blown gasket, how much time does it usually take to fix this? It's not my main car, so it's not really urgent that I fix it, but I don't want it to take several weeks either.
 
#7 ·
It will probably depend on whether or not a) the head needs a skim and b) whether or not it will still be in spec aftewards. I've never done a head on one of these, but doesn't look too bad. I guess the exhaust manifold studs will be the worst part.

I'm pretty handy with a set of spanners and reckon i could pull one off in a morning..unless there's something odd i'm missing? I guess releasing the tensioners will be the most awkward part
 
#8 ·
the jobs is not to bad, my dads is a 1994 9000 2.3 turbo, the hardest part is broken studs, lucky enough i didnt have any, everything came out with no problems, the inlet manifold bolts were not too bad, people mentioned they were the worse things to get at but it took me no more than 5 min to remove and 10 min to re-assemble, i think in all including cleaning of the head and block the job took me about 7 - 8 hours by myself which wasnt bad as i had never even had the bonnet up on his car in the 6 years of him owning it and no manual. Everything was done on my driveway with basic tools, just make sure you got plenty of different size extension bars and wobbly joints,
 
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