head gasket advice, i'm going nuts!

[fluzysuzy]

Hi everyone, any help and advice appreciated.
I bought my Corsa 2002 1.2sxi 16v 4 months ago and regret it so much, since I bought it this is what has happend.

• water pump went while on motorway, i didnt even notice the temp gage till the car broke down needle was as far on the red as it can go. Basically I cooked the engine is what I have been told
• Water pump replaced and was told the engine didnt appear damaged.
• sprouted a leak, appeared to be coming from 1 of the water pipes going into the rad jubilee clip fitted and topped up coolant.
• another leak sprouted out of pipe from the thermostat replaced jubilee clip and added coolant.
• again another leak sprouted from pipe coming from the water pump these leaks only happend every few days, then discovered hot blowers not working at all.
• thermostat replaced, blowers worked for 2 hours, then stopped again, leak coming from thermostat now.
• Garage put K seal in water system, this stopped the random leaks straightaway.

1 week & 2 days later - Car running well although Hot Blowers still not working it never over heats sits just below the 90 once I have drove a few miles and generally runs like it used to. I have been checking the water levels and they have remained the same, but have noticed a tiny streak of white on my oil cap, so have been looking at this daily and I would say 3 times in the last week a tiny streak of white has shown, about 5mm long and 2mm wide, so tiny but evidence of water

I rang vauxhall and asked how much they would charge to skim the head if that is the problem, and he said corsa sxi heads don't skim well, and 9 out of 10 they need replacing and this probably wasnt cost affective!

Please can anyone help me, I have spent up on this car and I really don't know what else to do.

[jd_975]

Hi mate, the cooling system on these engines is very difficult to bleed, the best way I have found is remove the small bore pipe from the top of the water pump and clamp it off then remove the cap from the coolant reservoir and blow through the reservoir untill coolant escapes out the top of the water pump and that is usually enough, if your garage has used a cooling system stop leak though then almost definitely you now have a blocked heater matrix, seen this many many times! Not a massive job to change but a pain no less, you need to have a block test done to identify if there are CO gases present in the cooling system this will tell you if the head gasket has blown, Vauxhall do not recommend having the head skimmed on this engine as it changes the tolerances for the timing chain and in severe cases the timing chain casing will not line up with head anymore but so long as its not too bad I have seen it done successfully more than once, Hope this helps.

John

[danielsatur]

I would also consider www.steelseal.com , it has a guarantee + Pay Pal!

www.alldata.com , should have a coolant bleed procedure.

[woody2807]

Good advice from JD.

A small amount of white emusified oil and water on the oil filler cap isn't unusual at these temperatures, if the engine doesn't get hot enough to burn any condensation.