Another head gasket saga?????

Yes another head gasket thread, but after reading many different HGF threads any directly relevant experience from community would be much appreciated.

Over the last 3wks the Wife's MGF (98) has being losing a bit of water (about 0.5-1cm from max every 1-2wks) and some signs of 'mayo' has appeared on the upper half of the dip stick (not the bit in sump). otherwise the car is running well, but I suspect the Head gasket is now failing. I plan the have a look in the cam cover this week for more 'mayo'

We brought the car last July and its been used reliably almost daily, with no signs of losing water, 'mayo' in the oil or overheating. And the wife has been well drilled about checking the water level!

The previous owner had a HGF in 2013, and according to the repair bill the head was skimmed and pressure tested. So my concern is; why is it failing again?? I assume if it was not repaired correctly, or overheated after the repair but before we owned it surly the problem would appeared earlier then now?

Can anyone offer any wise words? as I really do not want to replace the head gasket only for it to failure again!

Ideally you need to find out where the water is going. Have the under floor coolant pipes been changed?
A gasket can still fail even if it's recent, it all depends on who did it.
The only real test is a sniff test to see if gasses are in the water.

if no other symptoms (boiling, oil in the header tank, cheese on the dipstick - a little mayo is not a reliable inducator), then it may not be HGF. A small leak at the radiator, pipes, hoses or even inlet manifold can produce a level drop, as can a failed header tank cap which allows coolant to vent.

First steps should be to check carefully for leaks throughout the system. You can do this visually, and if you have a garage, by parking overnight on an old sheet or some cardboard to check fro drips.

A new header tank cap is cheap enough to have a spare or two any way.

Next, do an oil change an pay close attention to the appearance of the oil that comes out... anything from clear to black coffee is fine, but if its more like a latte then yes, thats HGF.

Agree with above first off replace expansion tank cap, also if the under floor coolant pipes have not been changed get them done. If these let go you only have seconds to save your engine.

:beer: :beer: Steve.

Guy at work as a freelander 1800 petrol...k series on a 04 plate...been driving it around for a while with bottles of water....steam from the exhaust and sounding like it's running on three cylinders now and again...he's had the freelander van from new...numerous head gaskets and it's been around big Ben. ....anyway he went out and bought some steel seal from halfords and put it in.....after a number of people advised him to weigh the car in and get another.....he came in to work the next day with a smile......fixed it he said....no more leaking gasket...bullshit was chanted....we checked under his bonnet and the water is bob on the mark.

give it a week or so... :hgf:

Thanks all,

I had a look through the oil filler on the cam cover and there was no sign of mayo there. I also took the top half of the oil filler/dipstick tube off and found that the bottom half, which is a funnel, has some traps very bottom which had a bit of mayo trap in.

It still seems to good to be true but I'm starting to think that some moisture has got in the filler/dipstick area, rather than HGF.

I have not done a detailed look for coolant loss yet, but I suspect such a small leak would be hard to spot (radiator maybe?). As for the other advice, I changed the expansion tank a few months after buying the car as the coolant level would go up when the car was hot, and the previous owner did the SS under floor pipes.

If all is well over the next few weeks I might fit a PRT for a bit of extra protection!!

hopefully thats all. Yes leak depending on location can be hard to find. You've basically got every inch of pipework in the engine compartment, hoses down to the underfloor pipes, pipes to the radiator, the radiator itself, the pipes that run through the car to the heater and the small heater rad to check.


Edit: it's worth noting that some types of antifreeze glows in black light UV. If you have a UV light source (keyring/torch/bank note checker etc) dip a bit of paper in your expansion tank and see if it glows up when dry.. if so, you just made finding a possible leak much quicker

Why not drop the oil and have a proper inspection of it to see if it is water contaminated.

Might as well do the filters as well if there is no sign of water in the oil.

g7nbp wrote: give it a week or so... :hgf:

I said the same..give it a bit before boasting it's cured...I will come back to this post when or if it fails again.

la_guillotine wrote: Thanks all,

I had a look through the oil filler on the cam cover and there was no sign of mayo there. I also took the top half of the oil filler/dipstick tube off and found that the bottom half, which is a funnel, has some traps very bottom which had a bit of mayo trap in.

It still seems to good to be true but I'm starting to think that some moisture has got in the filler/dipstick area, rather than HGF.

I have not done a detailed look for coolant loss yet, but I suspect such a small leak would be hard to spot (radiator maybe?). As for the other advice, I changed the expansion tank a few months after buying the car as the coolant level would go up when the car was hot, and the previous owner did the SS under floor pipes.

If all is well over the next few weeks I might fit a PRT for a bit of extra protection!!

A very common leak is the plastic inlet manifold if it's an MPI engine. Sometimes you can get away with a new gasket, but often the manifold is warped.
A good move is to replace it with an alloy manifold off a later car.:yesnod:

What I found when I removed my plastic inlet manifold!