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currently running my car on veg oil.

my mate followed me today about 7 miles.

he said when i boot it (to about 3.5k revs it puts out a fer bit of white smoke.

i'm currently loosing coolant. cant see any visable water leaks.

checked oil everyday and its nice and clean no signs of water mixing in the engine oil.

car it pulling strong as it normally does.

could this be a head gasket failing ?

what are the symptoms of a head gasket failure ?

I REALLY HOPE IT ISNT

also car doesnt overheat.

temp did hit about 93 today in traffic but doesnt go over that,

once i started driving it soon dropped to 80.

My car was driving absolutely fine apart from a loss of coolant, it was obvious that the car was pressurising the cooling system, as it was forcing coolant out of the expansion tank. As you may know im in the process of stripping the car myself as a garage wanted £900 to do a Hg, rad, cambelt, water pump, oil and filter change. I said no thanks It may be steam coming out the exhaust.. can you do a sniff test on it? only takes 5 mins to do, and will tell you one way or the other. like your car i used to go upto 90deg in traffic and it would cool straight back down when back upto speed.
Col

might be a stupid question but whats a sniff test

Gary406 wrote:might be a stupid question but whats a sniff test

you have to take it to a garage and they but a prope in your coolant tank.

cheers will get it tested 2moro .

fingers crossed. because if it is head gasket its being scrapped.

driven carefully i did 3000 miles with my head gasket going, losing coolant but no oil water mixing. towards the end it started getting warm in traffic so had to do it in the end, that was on my old 2.1td, which went on to do another 75K miles trouble free in 12 months

whats the labour rate for a head gasket change ?

not sure to be honest i did my own, but id imagine you wouldnt get much change from about £400 inc parts

new car it will be then. no way am i throwing that at it.

hope some £10 K-Seal will stop the water leak. cuz i like this car

Good luck on the gasket mate, it'd be a shame to scrap after getting it to the stage you want it to be

As said mate try some k-seal first, there is a few 'miracle cure' products available now, There was one in my local motor factors called steel seal (I think) thats supposed to seal leaking head gaskets, its £30 a bottle tho

The shop said the feedback from it is good and that it works, they said a guy bought some for his Vectra, put it in outside the shop and it sorted it, Can't see it myself

A sniff test is a pippet thing with a chemical in thats yellow to start with and if it detects exhaust gasses in the expansion tank it turns the chemical blue

gary does the heater blow hot air when the engine's warm with out any rev's, ie idle???

if it needs rev's to get it to blow hot then yes its f*cked. if not u should get away with k seal.
the white smoke u speak of is probs water in getting in to the cyclinders.


french cars seem to go this way especilay small renualts and pugs. ive done quite a few in that last year

jamjar1383 wrote:gary does the heater blow hot air when the engine's warm with out any rev's, ie idle???

if it needs rev's to get it to blow hot then yes its f*cked. if not u should get away with k seal.
the white smoke u speak of is probs water in getting in to the cyclinders.


french cars seem to go this way especilay small renualts and pugs. ive done quite a few in that last year

car is normal mate. heaters get very hot. it idles perfect. i changed my coolant sensors last week and stupid me did it after a long journey plus i never removed the coolant lid to de-compress the system so when i took sensor off coolant shot 15 foot in the air and all over me

so i'm thinking the drop in coolant could be from me not topping it up enough. and the white smoke could well be the veggie oil.

just spoke to guy at local factors. he can do me a bottle of K-seal for £10. its worth a try.. plus i'm gonna fill tank up with diesel soon. get rid of veg oil to see if thats the cause of the white smoke ..

My cars been on veg oil since i bought it in January,and ive not had any white smoke. I have read that running your car on veg can expose weak spots in the car though.. (whatever that means!!??).. i would doubt that is whats causing the white smoke on your car. Good luck!