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what kinda symptoms do you get when you have a blown head gasket?
blown head gasket
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First things to check are for cross contamination of the oil and coolant. Telltale signs are milky moisture on your oil's dipstick or slimey brown discolored coolant. Usually the exhaust will be puffing clouds of white smoke also.
OK when your headgasket blowes the usually symptoms will be...
-loss of coolant- will either overflow out the puke bottle, or burn up in the cylinders causing white smoke (very bad, could hydrolock the motor), or leak into your oil or vise-versa.
-loss of power- Because the headgasket is leaking you will lose compression which will cause a loss of power.
-Weird idle- you idle will usually be higher than normal because the engine is trying to cool it self down.
-overheating- this is why your head could warp if you keep driving on a blowen headgasket if its overheating really bad.
-Low/leaking or varying compression- do a compression test on a cold engine, the compression should be anywhere from 100psi's - 140psi's, and shouold be close to the same in each cylinder. If the compression leaks out in one or more of the cylinders on a cold engine then you probley have a blowen headgasket. if the compression seems ok on a cold engine but your still having the symptoms above while driving,, then proceed to do another compression test on a warm (running temp) engine. Do the compression test again, if the compression drops in one or more cylinders on a warm engine..but was fine on a cold engine, then your head may be cracked.
methman
-loss of coolant- will either overflow out the puke bottle, or burn up in the cylinders causing white smoke (very bad, could hydrolock the motor), or leak into your oil or vise-versa.
-loss of power- Because the headgasket is leaking you will lose compression which will cause a loss of power.
-Weird idle- you idle will usually be higher than normal because the engine is trying to cool it self down.
-overheating- this is why your head could warp if you keep driving on a blowen headgasket if its overheating really bad.
-Low/leaking or varying compression- do a compression test on a cold engine, the compression should be anywhere from 100psi's - 140psi's, and shouold be close to the same in each cylinder. If the compression leaks out in one or more of the cylinders on a cold engine then you probley have a blowen headgasket. if the compression seems ok on a cold engine but your still having the symptoms above while driving,, then proceed to do another compression test on a warm (running temp) engine. Do the compression test again, if the compression drops in one or more cylinders on a warm engine..but was fine on a cold engine, then your head may be cracked.
methman
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·Methman, good post, but please take out all the E's in blown 
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Blowen in the wind.....
Hah, ha .....Yepperz, a thorough write up "Meth" !
Blowen head gaskets will cause bloweing white smoke from the exhaust.
Hah, ha .....Yepperz, a thorough write up "Meth" !
Blowen head gaskets will cause bloweing white smoke from the exhaust.
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Maybe it's necessary to get the word past the censors.FlySwat said:Methman, good post, but please take out all the E's in blown
You know, "Bottle is fine, but I'd rather be blowen" instead of, "Bottle is fine but I'd rather be *****".
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Blown Head Gasket
Hey I had the same problem with my six. Whatever you do do not try "Stop-leak" or any of that copper coolent additives that will seal cracks and what not. It does nothing but screw up your coolant system leaving pieces of copper floating throughout the radiator even after flushing it thouroughly. The worst thing to do is to keep driving it, you will notice a very significant loss of power, and if you have white smoke coming out of your tail pipe, get the gasket replaced immediately as it may cause hydrolock and that is the last thing you want. (No ****)
Hey I had the same problem with my six. Whatever you do do not try "Stop-leak" or any of that copper coolent additives that will seal cracks and what not. It does nothing but screw up your coolant system leaving pieces of copper floating throughout the radiator even after flushing it thouroughly. The worst thing to do is to keep driving it, you will notice a very significant loss of power, and if you have white smoke coming out of your tail pipe, get the gasket replaced immediately as it may cause hydrolock and that is the last thing you want. (No ****)
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i get white smoke, but i dont lose coolant and my engines idle is actually lower than normal lol
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well from the symptoms above it doesent look like a blown gasket whats else could cause a compression leak cause thats what i got
Hehe, sorry man, but you aren't gonna want to hear this, but I think it may be your rings are bad. I am not sure exactly what all was done to your FE, but I do know JayB had it. I AM NOT blaming this on JayB, this exact same thing happened to me. The company he used to hone my block and paint it and assemble the bottom end did a sh*t-*ss job on mine. The gap on my rings was not measureable with the right tool (sorry, I am having a brain fart at the moment or something), I could measure it with a ruler. It was about 1/8" on half of my rings. Which caused me to crack two of them and my oil pump to go bad. The company was called Revmasters, and I guarantee you they will never ever get any business from me again.
I am not saying this is your problem, but it is a good possibility if he had them do it. I don't know what all was done to yours. I think you mentioned b4 that you had new pistons/rings in it, which would mean it needed to be honed and assembled. If you want I can ask him next time I see him who did yours? I should see or be able to get the message to him today, so I will and I'll just let you know.
I am not saying this is your problem, but it is a good possibility if he had them do it. I don't know what all was done to yours. I think you mentioned b4 that you had new pistons/rings in it, which would mean it needed to be honed and assembled. If you want I can ask him next time I see him who did yours? I should see or be able to get the message to him today, so I will and I'll just let you know.
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i was afraid that it might be the rings, it bout ready to go into the turbo conversion so i was gonna replace them anyways just sucks that i spent that money for pretty much nothing
Yeah, I know, same here, believe me. B/c of that my car has been down for 13 months now and counting. You thought it was bad when yours took 6 months. It's not Jay's fault though, I've had some bad luck with my other vehicle dying on me which took the money I was gonna use for the car away, and I moved in the middle of all this, so I had to put off the car until I got done moving.
Be careful driving it like that, I had two broken rings in my engine and I was LUCKY I didn't do any severe harm to my pistons and lose my $500 I put into buying them. My car only ran for about 2000 miles before my oil light came on b/c I was losing oil pressure due to the oil pump going out on me. So just be careful not to do any harm to the engine. I am lucky I have a 2nd vehicle so if my car is down I still have something to drive.
Be careful driving it like that, I had two broken rings in my engine and I was LUCKY I didn't do any severe harm to my pistons and lose my $500 I put into buying them. My car only ran for about 2000 miles before my oil light came on b/c I was losing oil pressure due to the oil pump going out on me. So just be careful not to do any harm to the engine. I am lucky I have a 2nd vehicle so if my car is down I still have something to drive.
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yea i moved from VA matter of fact i put my AL plates on the car the day i picked it up
i got another car not as fast but it keeps miles off the mx6
i got another car not as fast but it keeps miles off the mx6
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ok well the problem got really bad so i parked the mx6, where is a good place to get new rings?
Ok, you need to take that engine apart before you do or buy anything. There could be more wrong than just the rings at this point. My problem had been my oil pump, then when I tore the block down I found my ring problem. Either you need to do it or you need to have someone do it. In order to do this you must pull the head, drop the oil pan and stiffener, then drop the crank so you can push the pistons out the top of the motor. Take a look at the cylinder walls, hopefully the nice cross-hatch is still there, if not it will need to be honed at the least, maybe bored over. If it needs to be bored over you are gonna need new pistons and rings to match the overbore. If the cylinders are ok check the pistons, make sure they aren't too bad looking. Mine were a little worn from the piston slap caused by the bad ring gap, but were still useable. One of my rings on two different pistons litterally fell off when I pull the piston out. It was broken in numerous spots. My cylinders needed to be honed. If you don't wanna do all this work yourself, take it somewhere, but be prepared to fork out some money to pay someone else to do it.
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so i guess my plans to bore out i should just go ahead and do it and not to worried bout the money i got some guys from alpoc helping with the work, what would be a good size bore?
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