goodridge 0 Posted December 20, 2005 Wondered if anyone can come up with any suggestions for me as I'm totally out of ideas. Are you sitting comfortably..... I took on a MK3 Golf 1.8 8V Single point auto for a head gasket job. The gasket has gone so badly that the coolant and the oil had turned to what looked like pea soup. The worst I have ever seen, totally emulsified together. So head gasket changed, head skimmed and pressure tested, all the pipes flushed through, heater matrix and radiator flushed through. Everything cleaned and re-assembled. Run up to temp, within a few mins of running the water boils over (cap off to bleed air out) The long and the short of it is I cannot fix this problem.... Here is a list of things I have changed:- water pump, radiator, thermostat (ran up in and out) heater matrix bypassed, oil cooler for auto box bypassed, all pipes flushed through. Everything on the coolant system has been replaced or substituted. This has gone on so long the only thing left was to change the engine, to eliminate cracked/porous head or block, which we have done aswell!!!!!! As you can imagine I am totally hacked off with this as it still does the same!!! As soon as it gets warm if you take the top rad hose of the head there is no water in there just steam. There is water in there until it has been running for a few minutes. Running the engine with the heater matrix pipes off no water comes out of them! WTF?!?!! Sorry for the long post but I am totally out of ideas in everyway and this is my last resort. THanks for reading. John Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
h100vw 0 Posted December 26, 2005 Does it have valves in the matrix pipes, take them out. Any car would normally boil over eventually with the cap off. Try filling the block through the top hose. Maybe pull the tstat or bottom hose on the housing to see if water flows out of there. Had they run it for ages with no water? Gavin Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
_Monkey 0 Posted December 26, 2005 Has it got one of those ball shaped header tanks? I hear that the rubber o ring in the cap can go and create all sorts of nonsense, very similar to what you're experiencing. It's only a couple of quid, so might be worth a shot. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
goodridge 0 Posted December 28, 2005 Sorted now. Thanks for the suggestions anyhow. Cheers John Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
fabvr6 0 Posted January 1, 2006 so..... wat was the problem Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
goodridge 0 Posted January 1, 2006 Well.... a suggestion was made that the water was boiling too quickly because we hadn't added any Anti-Freeze to it. So since we had tried everything else we could possibly think of we thought balls to it we'll try it. Filled up with Anti-freeze and water..... Put the cap on the coolant bottle..... Ran up to temp, took ages to get heaters so I pulled of the outlet form the matrix and bleed the air out, then we got heaters. Not boiling over, fan cutting in. Job done. I've never known this before and I'm still not 100% convinced that was it but it worked. Something to bare in mind for next time I guess..... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Supercharged 2 Posted January 2, 2006 You should always add antifreeze tho as it's also anti corrosive and raises the boiling point of the whole system... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
goodridge 0 Posted January 2, 2006 supercharged Yea I know, but we had tried to bleed it so many times previously with no success and didnt want to waste anymore coolant. Hence the running it up with just water in it. I'm still not convinced that was what did it else it would have done it in the first place, not after replacing everypart of the cooling system. John Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Supercharged 2 Posted January 2, 2006 Yeah - maybe you just dislodged something... or the matrix valves were stuck closed.... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
goodridge 0 Posted January 2, 2006 Yeah - maybe you just dislodged something... or the matrix valves were stuck closed.... It'll be one of those never know ones. I didn't have any matrix valves and we tried it with the matrix by-passed Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Supercharged 2 Posted January 2, 2006 Yeah sorry, course they don't... This thread did worry me a bit - My mum has, you've guessed it, a MK3 AAM 1.8 auto... :lol: Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
goodridge 0 Posted January 2, 2006 Well like I said in the original post I have never seen a head gasket gone this bad since I have been in the trade. Totally emulsified oil and water in ALL the oil ways and ALL the water system. It was bad to say the least. I wouldn't worry. As I'm sure your well aware this is a very rare thing. Its the ONLY Golf (or VW for that matter) I've ever had trouble bleeding. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Supercharged 2 Posted January 2, 2006 Yeah - hers is only on 80k and it's had oil changes every 5k miles and coolant changes every 2 years since new so should be ok! What mileage was this on? did you find anything that may have caused it to go - must admit not sure what is inside the gearbox cooler, doubt that would get blocked tho... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
goodridge 0 Posted January 2, 2006 This one was on 100k. In total we had the car about 6 weeks (working in the eves) obviously we didn't work on it every night but a good fair few! Everytime I looked at it I just wanted to sort it. I hate being beat, especially on my home product! The only thing we actually proved to be faulty was the radiator we I had tested and was found to have a bad leak. I wasn't convinced this would sort it or though it was suggetsed it could be drawing air (new one to me but possible I guess) We had the head re-done and pressure-tested (I'm losing faith in this pressure testing lark though) new water pump, stat (in and out) Matrix by-passed, gearbox oil cooler by-passed, all pipes flushed and cleaned. In the end we even put another engine in the bloody thing because that was the only thing we hadn't replaced/substituted out. I'm sorry mate but I've no idea. I'm glad to have seen the back of it, it was giving me nightmares at one point! lol. John Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
