Car was blowing white smoke, so water getting into the cylinders. Had head skimmed and refitted it with new gasket and head bolts. Still getting white smoke.
Any ideas why?
how good is your torque wrench? not done up right?
still water in the exhaust etc?
You think the torque wrench could be out?
Let it run till the engine heated up, so don't think it was residual in the exhaust
is the header tank losing water? if so then its deffo using it and something not right... was the block face clean?
If its not then i'd take it for a run and see if it clears
Can take a good motorway run to get rid of the water in the exhaust. If there is 1 litre of water in there then it'll make something like 1000 litres of steam
I've had a few golfs that steamed for what seemed like weeks after a HG. It can help if you leave the car ticking over a little higher for an hour or two to make sure the exhaust gets really hot. Try one of those tests you stick in the header tank that checks for exhaust gases in the coolant.
The car doesn't seem to be running right, as if it's misfiring. Is this a cause for concern? Nervous about taking it for a run and doing more damage.
Doesn't seem to be losing water from the header tank and yes the block face was clean.
Suspect the last two head gaskets I've used were crap (pressed paper ones) but was told they were the right ones for the py engine, I have my doubts. Anyway, I've ordered a 6n 8v metal one to try tomorrow. Hopefully that'll do the trick.
Well, the new head gasket seems to have done the trick. No loss of water, no oil in the water and no white gunge in the oil. However, the car is now misfiring badly and blowing out smoke which seems to be a whiteish blue.
Whipped out the spark plugs and found the one's in cyl's 2 and 4 are wet, whereas 1 and 4 are dry and look as they should. Checked all the wiring and firing order etc.. all seem fine.
Any ideas what could be causing the misfire?
Checked the earths - ok, checked for spark - ok, changed the ht's - no difference, checked for fuelling - ok. Knocking from the engine tells me its probably the piston rings that have gone. Back to square one.
On second thoughts, I have upped the compression ratio by having the head skimmed and also by using a thinner head gasket. Maybe the NGK spark plugs just aren't up to it. Also, the timing has only been set by lining up the marks so far, not with a gun. I'll get a set of Bosch W5DPO's and also correctly set the timing and see how we go with that.
ngk plugs should be good bp7evx..
timing light needed me thinks
Thats what I have at the moment. Hopefully, as you say, it's just the timing needing adjusting.
Is it worth changing the coil too?
with g40, preventative maintenance is key.
If its 20 yrs old, chances are it'll break soon!
Ok, we'll see how it goes. I'll get to drive this car properly yet. ;D
Changed the coil, dizzy cap and rotor arm. Took all the charge pipes and the intercooler off and cleaned them of all oil. Checked the timing which seems to be spot on. Still no difference, still misfiring and throwing out smoke.
Do you think it could be a fuelling problem?
Check you have put the dizzy leads on in the right order. One of your previous posts said 2 plugs were wet and 2 dry. If you put the leads on in the right order but wrong rotation direction on the dizzy (1243 instead of 1342) it will fire on 2 only. I've done that before on a Triumph Dolomite and it took a while to work out why it was running a bit lumpy!
I have them running anticlockwise 1342 from the front of the dizzy cap as you look at it. I'll take the cap off and double check I have them starting from the correct spot i.e. where the rotor arm is pointing when at TDC.
Just occurred to me that I may have mixed up the tappets when refitting the cam. Do you think this could be the cause of the problem?
Finally got round to checking the tappets today. Some of them appear to have no travel of the spring inside I.e. Stuck. Is this the likely cause of the smoke? Valves being held open?
Tappets were disassembled and reassembled, but were not the cause of the smoke.
Here's a couple of pics as dubstar requested to know how it was done.
Tappets removed and left in a gunk bath to try to free them off as some had no travel of the internal follower.
(http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa383/borismk2/VWs/iPhone042.jpg)
Didn't really make much difference really, so the previous step may not be neccessary.
(http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa383/borismk2/VWs/iPhone043.jpg)
After carefully but firmly knocking the tappet facedown on some soft wood, the follower and spring works its way out.
(http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa383/borismk2/VWs/iPhone041.jpg)
I then re-oiled and refitted the springs and followers and they moved freely.
(http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa383/borismk2/VWs/iPhone044.jpg)
Shame it didn't solve the problem. Hope this helps someone else who's thinking of doing this though, very easy to do.
Pull the plugs and photograph them, you'll easily tell if they're being cleaned with water, or if it's residual coolant in the exhaust.
Did you have the head pressure tested? Quite a few crack or go porous if the incorrect coolant concentration has been used for a period of time- i.e the gasket might be fine...
Will do. No I didn't have it pressure tested, there's every chance it could be porous, as it had been left with just water and no coolant in it for a while. However, it did run fine for a day after I did the bottom end changeover. Two of the plugs are dry and two wet when they're removed and checked, cant remember which offhand.
It seems to run ok when first turned over, but then the smoke appears and it misfires when you rev the engine, putting it under pressure.
Thank a lot for the pictures - that's great, much appreciated ;D
Hope you sort it mate :-\
Quote from: dubstar on December 05, 2011, 10:20:03 AM
Thank a lot for the pictures - that's great, much appreciated ;D
Hope you sort it mate :-\
Cheers mate, but I don't have the means to remove the engine and fix it anymore, don't have a driveway / garage to work on it, so I'm selling it on. Don't want to break it.