Blown Head Gasket?

[George]

Went for a bit of a blast today and I think I may have blown my head gasket. Driving along with my foot off the throttle white smoke billows out of the exhaust. I pulled over and looked under the bonnet and could see steam coming from somewhere under the exhaust manifold and could hear bubbling. There is no water in the oil, but traces of oil and water in the exhaust. The car was missing on idle, so I just left it where it was and hitched a lift.

I've only done around 500 miles on the new gasket but I got a cheap one from the motor factors rather than genuine Nissan. A mistake I fear.

Is there anything else it might be?

Turbo is brand new
Pistons have done 2000 miles

[arry]

sounds fairly serious :(

Compression test should show up the fault

[pauldudley]

if it was the head gasket it would be steam not smoke & a block test is the best bet could be bent or snaped valve crack head...:confused:

[Stidi]

if it's coming from under the exhaust manifold there's a good chance one of the turbo water pipes has buggered itself. this may be due to the hg going and pressurising the system though :(

i think i've got a standard nissan head gasket somewhere, i'll check :)

[voodoo_melon]

Water leaking into the cylinders will cause smoke, lots of it.

Also a split turbo pipe wouldn't cause water in the exhaust, so your diagnosis of head gasket sounds accurate to me :(

If it has gone and is burning water the level in the radiator will have gone down and if you re-fill it you'll get exhaust bubbling up through it. Level in the header tank will probably be the same though...

[landspeed]

Sounds like HG. The missing on idle probably being due to the cylinder that has gone, with water etc getting on the spark plug (and lower compression). Have you compression tested it yet?.

When my old Bluebird HG went, it was running fine, but there was a smoke screen behind it. Once I stopped the engine it never started again though!. The smoke screen started suddenly too.

[George]

It's the head gasket. The car still runs but water actually drips out of the join between head and the block on the inlet side, and then steams off. The white smoke coming out of the exhaust is definately steam so it must be getting into the cylinder too. I've never seen a head gasket go that badly or suddenly before. I think I might just rebuilt the CA using a genuine Nissan Item then punt it and buy an RB25DET. I just rebuilt the bloody thing too!! The car is utterly mint too thanks to a comlete strip and rebuild so it's worth doing something with. I've had every nut and bolt out and stripped the car to a bare shell before painting it inside and out. Shot blasted and painted all sub frames and suspension pieces, took me weeks just working evenings and weekends and I've made the mistake of becoming emotionally attached to the thing now. Oh well, more time and hastle!!

[arry]

did you get the torque settings correct on the head bolts?

[Sideways Danny]

did you skim the head and torque the bolts correctly? you need to tighten them in 2 stages, then loosen them and tighten them again

[landspeed]

[QUOTE=George]It's the head gasket. The car still runs but water actually drips out of the join between head and the block on the inlet side, and then steams off. The white smoke coming out of the exhaust is definately steam so it must be getting into the cylinder too. I've never seen a head gasket go that badly or suddenly before...QUOTE]

On my car, there was water dripping out from the actual engine block / head gasket seam (but I didn't realise that was what was happening). So much water got into one of the pistons that it caused hydraulic lock when I tried to restart it... So I've seen a worse failure in my time! :wack: