Used my car for business today and it broke down :(

....look forward to it.

 

Spoke to the mechanic and he said to clean out the breathers suggested here, clean out the top of the rocker and if it turns into sludge again its probably the HG which essentially means £400 wasted as I am not getting a HG changed on a car which already has a damaged camshaft.

 

buy a new head if that's the case, what will one cost from a scrapper, £50/£60

 

Thats not a bad idea It should be a bit lighter than a new engine block.

Shouldn't be that much labour involved changing that on a Fiesta either. If I am going down that route though I would probably get it MOT'ed at the same time, I don't want to spend £200+ on a new cylinder head if it ends up failing on stuff like cat and rust etc.

 

When is it's MOT due?

 

http://www.autopartstrader.co.uk/go...e=gm01&uniquen=1000189810&CMP=KNC-GOOGLE-BASE

 

The engines go for about £200, a good mechanic will do it for about another £200. Change the clutch at the same time and if the bodies ok, you should get cheap motoring for a few years

 

Not sure how easy that will be to fit in the MK3.5 as the Endura engine is slightly different. Mine is also the 1.1 so some of the auxiliaries may be different.

I've seen a lot of cylinder heads on ebay for £15-£20 plus £20 postage. That includes the camshaft, pushrods, valves etc. Then I need just buy a new HG on top that (no point using an old one) £15.

So its looking like around £60 for parts, doesn't seem like a too big job, disconnecting all them hoses seem to be the most time consuming thing. Either way its not a job I can do. I would doubt it would be more than £90 labour though (3 hours at £30).

 

The body is decent, but it will probably need welding at some point. And if I was going down that route I should have bought a none runner for £200. The other alternative is to just sell the car for £200 and cut my loses.

 

It is a big job. Disconnect everything, including the exhaust manifold. It would take a mechanic a day probably assuming that everything comes loose. Welding is cheap so I wouldn't worry about that.
Use this tool to help you find what you need:
http://www.autopartstrader.co.uk/pa...INE&sort=3&searchButton.x=29&searchButton.y=6

 

The breather pipe from the air filter was completely clogged up with gunk. I have cleaned it all out now, at first it seemed to help the smoke a lot but after the journey there was the usual amount of steam coming out.

HG failure seems very likely.

 

What's in that pipe now?

 

Its clear now just a bit of remains of the old gunk. I've not checked the pipe since I did the journey, but the cap seems fine.

 

Is it the exhaust that's smoking or the top of the engine?

Does the engine overheat? Is their mayonnaise anywhere to be seen, oil in the coolant? These are the classic symptoms of head gasket failure.

Lifted this from the web. It might help you.
Every standard piston/crankshaft car made today has an engine block and a cylinder head which bolts on top. Between these elements is the infamous head gasket. The function of the head gasket is to seal both the compression of the cylinders and the coolant which flows between the block and the head.

Sometimes the compression from the pistons blows a "hole" in the gasket allowing the compression to leak into the cooling system and coolant to leak back into the cylinder. There are a few symptoms of a blown head gasket. The first one is loss of coolant. Coolant can be lost from the leak in the gasket into the cylinder. From there it can go past the piston rings and into the crankcase or it can be forced out of the exhaust system by the action of the piston coming up on the exhaust stroke.

If the coolant enters the crankcase it mixes with engine oil. Of course oil and water don't mix very well but the presence of ethylene glycol (anti freeze) and the agitation caused by the crankshaft and other moving parts can whip the mixture of coolant and oil into a milkshake.

If the coolant is forced out of the exhaust system it is usually heated by the hot exhaust manifold and the rest of the exhaust system. This results in a sweet smelling steam emanating from the tailpipe. The steam is rather persistent, that is it will hover in the air and not dissipate like the normal steam that comes from the combustion process.

Testing an automobile engine for a blown head gasket is pretty straightforward. The first check is to see if there are combustion gasses getting into the cooling system. Take a sample of the coolant and go to the local radiator shop and request that they analyze the coolant for the presence of hydrocarbons. If they are present then it is most likely that you have a blown head gasket.

Another check is to look at the oil of a warmed up engine. The antifreeze in the oil will whip it up into a frothy brown mixture that looks like a milk shake. If it looks like chocolate mousse then you probably have a blown head gasket.

Another check is to fill the cooling system to the brim and remove the radiator cap. Do this when the engine is cool. Start the engine and race it. If there is a compression leak and the gasses are going into the cooling jacket then the gasses will displace the coolant. Since the cap is off the coolant will be pushed out of the radiator. You probably have a blown head gasket.

 

Is the car using oil or losing coolant?

 

Not using any coolant at all. It dosn't seem to be using oil but I have only done 150 miles in it so its tricky to tell. The oil on the dipstick is sludgy though, despite it only been changed recently.

The oil is a whitey colour and I suppose could be moose.

There was a lot of mayo under the filler cap.

So the oil is showing HG failure symptoms but nothing else.

 

I have had mayo appear in oil on bike engines that are not water cooled, it's just atmospheric moisture, maybe that is what you have?

 

Just ran it again this morning since the breather pipe was cleared, the oil on the dipstick is now exactly how it should be, no sludge.

There is still a bit of mayo round the filler cap but there is no smoke whats so ever at idle, before when the pipe was clogged there was constant light smoke. However after a 10 mile journey there is steam from the exhaust so there is still symptoms of HG problems. The coolant level has not dropped at all in 100 miles.

 

Even after a 10 mile journey in this weather you may well get condensation from the exhaust. I think you're worrying unnecessarily. I suspect the real problem was the breathing.
Give it a while and see

 

Just a question. If you have not lost any coolant, where the hell do you think the water is coming from. If you had head gasket failure, you would have lost some coolant. End of.