Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2003 10:03:03 +0100 From: Grunff <grunffnopsam.com> Subject: Re: Oil? in the coolant
Johannes H Andersen wrote: > Naturally, oil/water mix is a fairly sure sign of a blown headgasket, > but could there be a mild case without oil/water mix? Anyway, the > garage replaced headgasket, but said head that head skimming was not > needed in my case. Does it make sense? The car has been fine since, > in fact remarkably well behaved. You can certainly have a failed head gasket without water/oil mixing. For instance, you can have combustion gasses leaking into the cooling system. In theory, what you do is check the head for flatness, and skim only if it's at all out of flat. In practice, when I have the head stripped down I take it to a small workshop where they pressure test it and skim it as routine. This guarantees that I'll get a good seal with the new gasket. -- Grunff