Head Gasket

[justin]

Well my looks like my head gasket blew this morning, luckily 2 mins from my house and not on Stockton beach. Got all the classic signs of blowing white smoke, power loss, rattle at 1700 rpm and I just flushed the coolant which no doubt removed the little piece of crap that was holding it all together. I will let you know the real problem when the mechy takes it apart and cross my fingers and hope I ain't bent anything. I may even start looking at Hilux's at this rate..... what ever happened to "mate 4JG2 is good for 250K!" Will be seeking advice shortly.J

[Andrew]

Nothings that bad that you have utter that "H" word.... shame on you

[geeves]

unlike hiluxes isuzus only ever need head gaskets replaced once ever.Diesel hiluxes should have the head and gasket replaced as a maintanance item every 80000km

[justin]

My mate with his Hilux has just had a great day up on the beach, and I just priced the gasket set for my MU. So the H word has not been used as much as the F word today.

[rhys]

What was the asking price for the gasket set? PartsMaster in Hamilton wanted $179 while the Holden dealership wanted $300+ and another 300 for new bolts.

[justin]

I just dropped in at repco after leaving my BU, (Buggered Utility), at the mechy's and all they did was a complete gasket set for $450 . So I have yet to do the big parts search, but I'll see what my mechy says before I start looking just incase there's bent bits too...J

[MattMU]

Ouch!!!

Shouldnt be any bent bits!! But then again, Murphys Law.....

Buggar hey, might be that new turbo J too much power for the old girl, then again, she has a hard (short) life!

Dont forget Rob at Jackworld, he can source just about anything!!

You did bleed the air out of the coolant after flushing?? They can get an air bubble at the top of the head and there is enough heat in the air to operate the temp guage while the engine cooks!!! Pretty standard with most deisels.

If so it might be a warped head, but hopefully it was just a a sacraficial head gasket!

Let us know Mate!

Matt.

[justin]

Well I did run it and as norm after the coolant change and make sure all the air was out. It has also been operating for 2 weeks since the change with no issues and when she blew she had only been running for 5 mins? I guess I'll find out next week.J

[Yarno]

Dam Sugarloaf mud.....

May as well blame it J as it's the root of all evil, it has stuffed many things eh!! That why my rig is down for a SAS now...

Anyway good luck hope it's nothing too serious.

[justin]

Thanks Yarn, don't think I can blame this one on Sugarloaf, just a dodgy motor. Must admit the way I treat the old girl, (which is half of what you do to yours), its not surprising that the engine 'boltons' fall to pieces, but the head gasket going is a bit suspect. Mind you it was probably clocked on import so instead of doing 100,000K its more like 300,000K. We will see at the end of today and hopefully my diagnosis is completely wrong and its just a blocked injector J

[justin]

Well I'm completely confused now. My mechy has tested the Mu for two days, compression on the cylinders, pressure tested the coolant system overnight and found absolutely nothing wrong.So the theory is that the morning I drove off I used the engine preheater and instead of cutting out once it hit the optimum temp it didn't. This caused all the described symptoms, which didn't clear up even after it was left to cool for a while? So i'm going to give the motor a flush tomorrow as desribed in another post and ask the question to you all: Anyone had this issue before?

[geeves]

After rereading the original post I can say Ive had this twice. One cold morning it did it till about 1 km down the road then came right soon after I bought it I nearly had it at the mechanics as well The second time was after a post here re glowplugs and a quick test to see if the auto temp sensor is working.The test was to remove the right hand wire from the thermostat housing This makes the glow plugs stay on for max time but also changes the injector timing with exactly those symptoms once a little bit warm

[MattMU]

Alan, I posted that very old post many years ago to you about trying to change the glow plug timing....I had the 2.8 and changed to 3.1 The glow for the 2.8 was about half a second and the 3.1 needed a few to start on icey mornings.

Since then, I have had that wire disconnected every winter to give maximum glow and it does not effect the running of the engine at all. But in fairness, I have removed the preheat flpper in the exhaust but I swear the timing cant change, the car never runs any different!!

DAMN, if only someone had a workshop manual!!!

Glad to hear the car is OK, but thats anoying when you dont know what caused it J. I do like the sound of the preheat theory, very easily could have kicked in for some reason and would mess up the running severely!!

Fingers crossed it doesnt happen, or just rip it all out!! Piece of piss to bypass and remove all the associated crap!!

Let me know if you want directions!! mwa mwa mwa I love ripping superflous stuff out!!!!!

Matt.

[justin]

I have had it happen along time ago, but it just drove like and over choked petrol car, and cleared itself in a few minutes of running. This didn't clear in 15 minutes of running and lasted a day or so, even after it had been left to cool down twice. When the Mechy first tried to move it, it wouldn't hardley turn over like there was liquid in the cylinders, (we thought coolant, but maybe just fuel?). Any way I will not be using the preheater anymore, luckily I live in a warm climate. J

[Graham]

In another thread I think I said that I experimented with the preheat option.

If I try to accelerate, it really chokes and struggles to rev but at about 1500rpm all of a sudden the boost rises and it takes off hard. It actually seems to accelerate better than normal, but I think that's from the unexpected rush after choking.

It made no difference if I had the engine heat button pressed for 20 seconds or 5 minutes and would return to normal as soon as I switched off the engine pre-heat button.

I would say it does affect timing in some way but I know I'm not going to play with it any more!

Hope your beast is back to normal for good, Justin.

Cheers, Graham.