Update:
I took the wagon down to RE customs for the club membership renewal day. I thought I'd throw the wagon on the dyno for [shizzle]s and giggles. I won a price! Lowest power output for the day! 48.9kw atw! BooYah!
I was travelling along the freeway Sunday afternoon and the car started pinging badly, followed by the temp gauge going off the scale. Head gasket, Exit Stage left...... It idled pretty roughly and I pulled off the freeway and called a mate who has a towing company. Unfortunately he was at a BBQ living it up, so he couldn't help. He did do the call around for me, but to no avail. So the decision was made to drive it home, as the engine and box was going to be removed soon enough to make way for the turbo motor/manual box combo.
The trip home was eventful to say the least. The car was about 15 mins from home, with it running rough and the temp gauge up past the hot marker on the gauge. As we took off, there was a nice cloud of steam and oil coming from the exhaust. It cleared up and the car started running much nicer, if it could. It was a bit rattly and had a slight knock to it, until we got to a petrol station.
Upon arrival, there was a big pile of oil under the car and there was oil everywhere under the bonnet. It looks like the rocker cover was being pressurised by the exhaust gases, mixed with the oil and the water. 1 litre of oil was bought and thrown into the angry motor and we set off. The car seemed to drive ok after this, with the temp gauge still off the dial. The game plan was the limp it home by coasting down the hills and using light throttle when needed. The car survived this for close to 10 minutes, partially due to a big decent down a hill where I had it in neutral. The temp gauge didn't move at all.
we started to come up to a red traffic light at a local shopping area, and I decided to turn in so I didn't have to stop incase the engine stalled and wouldn't start again. Almost as soon as we turned the corner it went BANG!! with it dropping it's guts of oil and water everywhere. I actually thought the radiator split, but this was not the case. The rocker cover had become so pressurised that all the water/oil finally found a way out past the rocker cover gasket. Once this had happened and we sat in a steaming mess, she started right up again without an issue.
In fact, she idled much better and the temp gauge dropped due to it having no water to boil. I got it home easily from there and it still ran quite nicely considering the major blown head gasket. After turning it off for a while, it started back up again no probs.
Monday Night the engine and box came out, well kinda.... The chain that was holding the engine up snapped in half. Luckily no one was underneath it at the time.
More exciting updates to come so stay tuned.