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of head gasket failure?

car is a 1997 dturbo

now....

There is no signs of water/mayo in the oil, and the oiil temp is not going over 75ish which is making me unsure!

Car was serviced 1000miles ago with new oil filter, new oil, new air filter, new fuel filter etc etc.




symptoms so far are:

poor mpg, approx 400 per tank

Grey/white smoke ONLY whilst offboost and engine labouring (eg, 5th gear at 30mph with accelerater pedal fully down). Difficult to see this smoke during the day but extremely apparant at night if i have a cars headlight behind me.

heater tank of coolant is being used approx every 500-600miles. no coolant leaks spotted though!

Rev dependant ticking noise started at the weekend whilst on a high speed run (almost sounds like tappets :S)

Getting tougher and tougher to start, glow plugs are all new, and NO air in the fuel line, with no fuel leaks.


I'm scared. Is she about to sh*t her panties?
Is this the headgasket about to pop although theres no mayo?
IS there a steel gasket available from anywhere?
Will i need my head skimmed?
Tune in next time, same Bat time, same Bat channel.

poor mpg, approx 400 per tank

Not sure on this one, but do you fill to the price or the litre?

Grey/white smoke ONLY whilst offboost and engine labouring (eg, 5th gear at 30mph with accelerater pedal fully down). Difficult to see this smoke during the day but extremely apparant at night if i have a cars headlight behind me.

Wouldn't worry about the smoke when accelerating, seem to be a diesel thing, my old TD Xantia used to do it, went strait through its MOT though, heavy Black smoke is the worry.

heater tank of coolant is being used approx every 500-600miles. no coolant leaks spotted though!

Again, similar symptoms to what a Xantia suffers when the heater matrix's springs a leak. check the passenger side foot well for a wet carpet, unless it leaks somewhere else on a PUG.

Rev dependant ticking noise started at the weekend whilst on a high speed run (almost sounds like tappets :S)

Not sure, might be tappets, when was the last Cam-belt change, might of slipped a tooth and is now running out of time.

Getting tougher and tougher to start, glow plugs are all new, and NO air in the fuel line, with no fuel leaks.

You might have a duff glow plug, its been known to happen, also what make are they, apparently BERU are the best make for the Pug/Citroen Diesels, Also, does the car struggle to start from cold, but then when the engine is hot, you can park up, come back and it starts fine. if so, then its either a duff glow plug, or the wrong sort for your engine.

Also check your fuel leak off pipes, if your engine is anything like a Xantia's (which most are, i have a Citroen Xantia Active engine in mine) They are the Pipes that link from injector to injector from the fuel pump, above the glow plugs, these tend to get old and split, even tiny splits will cause air to leak in and thus give starting problems.

I'm scared. Is she about to sh*t her panties?
Is this the headgasket about to pop although theres no mayo?
IS there a steel gasket available from anywhere?
Will i need my head skimmed?
Tune in next time, same Bat time, same Bat channel.

Having had a Head gasket go, right in between cylinders 2 and 3 whilst driving, i have to say that i didn't notice anything out of the ordinary leading up to it, i did however notice when it happened, as lost a lot of power, and at idle car vibrated like a over sized rampant rabbit on steroids. though this was with a Golf GTI, and not a pug,

If the head gasket goes, you most likely will want to have the head skimmed, just to remove the crap from the old one.

From experience the only question I cab answer with confidnce is the head skim question... If the head gasket goes, whip the head off and take it to a local engineers to measure for flatness - they can tell you if its warped or not... if it is, a skim shouldnt cost much more than about £35-£45.

This is Weird!

Found a coolant leak from a split bleed screw that would only leak once engine was up to heat and pressurised. So replaced this with a tyre valve cap and the engine has stopped using coolant YAY!

Bad news though:

The ticking 'tappety' noise...... i took the car a 70mile drive 2days ago, and by the time i got to my destination the tapping noise had developed into a LOUD metallic banging noise, which sounded exactly like Big End Bearing Failure!!! And grey smoke was pouring out the exhaust!!! I checked the oil, it was perfect!

So yesterday i decided, right the engine is clean f*cked, i might aswell drive her the 70miles home going easy, tear out the engine and fit another. But 40miles into the journey i stopped at a petrol station.
When i started the engine again the LOUD banging noise had stopped, it was a quite tappety sound again.
I finished my journey like this.

The story now is, i still have this tapping noise, if i put my foot down on the accelerator enough grey smoke comes out to FILL the road behind me, i leave a trail of black soot on the road (free from oil) outta my exhaust, The 0-60time is down (should be 13secs, actually taking approx 17secs now)... i'm scared.

Now apparantly this engine got a recent bottom engine rebuild before i bought the car, where the conrods, bearings, shells were replaced, and the crank was reground. The chassis number is DHY which is known for conrod failure.

So i'm thinking this rebuild has gone wrong and the engine has gradually shook itself to sh*t. And all this smoke and low power is down to low compression from a buggered bearing? What do you think? PLEASE HELP!!!

Give up and fix the other lump squire. Let go, she's dead man....

Yep, i've decided f*ck it, she's dying and i'm gonna put her outta her misery. Gonna start the heart transplant tomorrow by starting removing the old lump.

Want to find a good donkey for her, one with a service history and one thats not dear. And i'll change every gasket, timing belt, fanbelt and waterpump, clean out all pipework etc etc on this new engine and give her a straight through exhaust to say sorry for destroying her