Possible head gasket blown

[ry4N]

Hi guys,

Right, I'm having an issue with my 9 that I think I need some help with.

About a month back I performed a thermostat change, which seemed to go great! The car warmed up great and my idling issue was sorted!

Only thing is a few days ago my mate and I were checking over the car and the overflow bottle was empy and I'd noticed that the car would smoke every now and then with white smoke, nothing over the top and sometimes It would hardly smoke at all!

I topped up the overflow bottle and came to check it today and it virtually empty again, I'd hardly driven it much over the last 2 days so was a bit miffed. me and my mate looked it over and found a loose nut on the thermo housing which may have been drawing air into the cooling system. This was tightened back to spec and the system was rebled.

Anyway should I keep my eye out for extensive losses in my overflow bottle and radiator?
And if it does keep happening, does it sound like it could be a blow head gasket in-between the coolant bypass and combustion chamber?

 

[Darragh]

Id say it wasnt fully bled out and its drawn in the extra coolant. Did you have the heater on fully hot when bleeding? Even still when you think all the air is out there usually is pockets still left.

The white smoke you are seeing maybe just condensation , but be sure to fill the expansion bottle and keep a close eye on it!

 

[ry4N]

I'll post a video up soon to show the smoke, some people have said condesation too so ill take a look when it starts to get warmer!

I did check the overflow bottle again this evening and it had drawn more into the rad, there are also signs of leaking from the bottom of the radiator/hose so I'm going to look into this.

Tbh I don think it's a head gasket issue, there was the odd bubble coming up in the radiator cap but nothing excessive (1 every 10 mins or so) and I think this was solved when the thermo housing was tightened correctly. No real common signs such as milky oil

 

[Barryl85]

Well the more you drive it without the coolant system properly fixed you run the risk of blowing the head gasket.

 

[olly ek9]

would say its definiteley a combination of this:

Id say it wasnt fully bled out and its drawn in the extra coolant.

and this:

there are also signs of leaking from the bottom of the radiator/hose so I'm going to look into this.

fix your leaks, keep an eye on temps and keep topping it up over the next few days and you shoudl be ok