First off hello to everyone

Hate to start off on the forum asking for advice but needs must, so I hope some kind sole will advise.

My mate has asked for my help with a 2004 1.8 TDCI (90ps) engine he has a problem with.

The engine was throwing out a lot of steam from the exhaust and losing about 2 litres of water in 5 miles so he suspected the head gasket.
(no oil to water / water to oil contamination)

So he removed the cylinder head expecting to find obvious signs of a blown gasket, but everything looked fine....that's when I got roped in

I've looked at the gasket and I can't see anything that looks out of the ordinary and as the engine was losing a lot of water I would have expected any fault to be obvious.


Are these engines prone to cracked heads?


I've read of problems with the EGR cooler leaking water and giving the appearance of a blown head gasket but as the engine is now apart we can't bypass the water side of the cooler to check.


Any advice appreciated.


Thanks.

 

I would say egr cooler if it has one.

 

Hi, thanks for the reply.

Yeah it has an EGR cooler but as the engine is now stripped we can't bypass it to test it, do you know if pressure testing the cooler off the engine would be an option?


It's a shame I hadn't got involved sooner as it would have been better to try the cooler before the engine was stripped



Thanks.

 

Assuming there are flow and return coolant spigots on it, connect it to a hosepipe and run some water through it and see if it pisses out through the exhaust side.

 

Yeah it has the coolant spigots on it so I'll try what you say with the hose pipe and see what happens.


Just thinking here --- if there was a crack in the head letting coolant into the exhaust ports / manifold would the turbine wheel of the turbo not be immaculately clean from the steam?



Thanks.

 

Ok, tested the EGR cooler with a hosepipe connected to the spigots no water came out of the exhaust side so decided to do a pressure test on it using compressed air.
Blanked one of the coolant spigots and connected the airline to the other, submerged the whole cooler into a bucket of water and pressurised it to 30psi, no bubbles, so it looks like the cooler is ok.



Thanks.

 

Any updates?

 

Yeah...

Just to explain a little....My mate who roped me in on the job is repairing it for his mate (owner)....so it's an all round favour job, and we all know how they go

Anyway, as there's no obvious signs as to the head gasket leaking and the EGR cooler appears to be ok the next thing is to have the head pressure tested, not sure when that's going to happen as it's down to the owner.

I'll let you know of any progress when it happens.


Thanks.

 

Just to conclude the thread.

My mate told me the engine is back together and seems ok.

The owner took the head to a engine reconditioning place, they checked head and gave it a light skim. New gasket etc and all seems ok.

So it appears the head gasket was the problem despite there being no obvious signs.

That said I didn't personally see how much steam was coming out of the exhaust or monitor the water loss, and you know how these things seem to get exaggerated!


Thanks for the input.