HELP Overheated now oil / smoke coming from rear of engine

[revver]

Hi,

Please help if you can. It isn't big ends though! Hope not Head Gasket either

Engine Overheated, now water jet/leak coming from rear of engine

I've owned my red stage 2 s13 since 2004 and this has happened before once - when it was fixed by burping the radiator and fitting a new rad cap. I tried that this time and it hadn't fixed it - any ideas? things to note:

• Oil / Filter (Fuchs 10>50 oil / Nissan filter) was changed last month / 250 miles ago by local garage - could they have overfilled it? Could that contribute to this issue at all?
• The overheating happened during 1st high speed (ish) run since oil /filter change, as soon as I saw the temp gauge in the red I stopped the car, waited for it to cool then poodled home with hot fan on full blast. But it blew cold.
• Its grey smoke and deffo from rear of engine, smoke can also be seen inside car by ashtray when on the move and of course out the back.
• The engine just seems overpressurised and I noticed that the dipstick was not flush in its seating, being about 1 cm up from where it should be. Hadn't checked that since I let garage change the oil as I was too busy with work that day.

I guess the overheating could have damaged the seal/gasket at back of engine?

As a new Dad (son is 9 weeks old) I'm under pressure to get a family car and this problem has the "interested parties" circling around me like sharks smelling blood to see if I will finally sell the S13! Don't want to sell but this could be the end if its not a reasonably easy / inexpensive fix.

I should be able to limp the car down to the next Essex meet at HWH if anyone's up for a look at it. I live about 10mins from HWH.

Cheers in advance

Trev
(Revver)

[Pablo13]

Sounds like you need a compression check to see what is what, then you need to work out why it overheated. Check coolant and oil levels, check for leaks, then start suspecting things like water pumps and blocked rads, breather pipes and go from there.

[revver]

Thanks for the super fast response Pablo13.

The Rad could do with changing to be honest as its been on there since I got the car in 2004.

Also I drove at high speed for too long when it overheated.

Just want to stop the smoke coming out now :-)

[revver]

Quick update its a water leak from underneath probably pipes damaged by excess heat will have to find the jack and take a closer look

[pointz]

Was going to say i had similar symptons and it was a tiny split in 1 of the coolant lines under the rear of the plenum, the one that goes from the block to the hardpipe around the back of the engine to the heater matrix.

[Jonny Wilkinson]

If you blew the dipstick out that suggests two things.

Firstly that the crankcase breather is blocked - It would be a very good idea to get all the breathers off and unblock them.

Secondly, you are probably getting quite a bit of blow-by passed the rings so a compression test would be a good idea.

Fix the water leak and give the car a bit ofcare before you rev the tatties off it again or it will very likely die.

If you come to HWH and find me, I'll show you what is involved in sorting the breathers. Could even do you a compression test if you want.

[revver]

Ok thanks for the advice, I will get the car to HWH next Thursday 21st if at all possible, but its leaking water pretty bad now. Haven't had it up on jacks yet, but using a mirror it looks like the leak is from the back of the head itself (passenger side) not just a pipe now! Heat damage might not have only done the head gasket, so someone needs to have a proper look really to be sure.

[revver]

Someone else had a look and could not decide if the leak was from the head or a leaky pipe so compression test is next on the agenda

[Mark]

Head gasket or a cracked head probably

[revver]

Eek! Need to confirm with compression test, but if it is that, my philosophy is that the car has given me over 8 years of awesome fun at stage 2 without the need for a head gasket in that time, so I'm not complaining if it needs doing now :-)

[revver]

Thanks to Jonny who has kindly offered to pop over to assist/advise

Meanwhile this morning some hope was provided by a neighbour (not a mechanic) who offered the opinion that "it can't be the head gasket with all that water coming out of the bottom of the car like someone turned a tap on!" Hope he's right and its just a split pipe.

[pointz]

Fair play Jonny good to see the love getting shared around sxoc! Good luck dude let us know how you get on!

[skyshack]

Thanks to Jonny who has kindly offered to pop over to assist/advise

Meanwhile this morning some hope was provided by a neighbour (not a mechanic) who offered the opinion that "it can't be the head gasket with all that water coming out of the bottom of the car like someone turned a tap on!" Hope he's right and its just a split pipe.

If water is coming out as fast as it's being poured in then it would point to hose.

Every major loss of water due to a blown hose can lead to gasket failure. May survive 3 or 4 hose failures but the gasket will eventually succumb. Sometimes the damage to the gasket takes a few 1000 miles to become apparent.

[Zornyan]

Honestly mate if the hoses are that bad buy a full engine hose kit like johnny has for sale, whip head off clean breathers, do all water hoses, new headgasket. Reassemble and know its all done and dusted. The hoses are such a pain its easier to take the head off anyway

[shogun]

Head gasket...
Compression goes into watersystem and "dar she blows"

Possibly this has caused a pipe/hose to rupture.

[arry]

Alright Trev - congrats on the kiddie mate

Sorry to hear about the car Does sound like head gasket.

[revver]

Alright Trev - congrats on the kiddie mate

Cheers arry

Thanks to all who offered advice on this and especially BIG thanks to Jonny for taking the time to come round to look at it, really appreciate all of your help, advice and thoughts, and doing the compression test (results were 10bar on all 4 cylinders).

Here's a video of the leak, hopefully its clear enough to see the water flowing out the back of what looks like water jacket / block area!



Can't really be sure exactly where the hole is without taking the engine out for a proper look, which is not going to happen any time soon funded by me, so what with being a new dad and all that entails, and having bought a 523i, the S13 is going to have to go to someone else to break it or sit in the garage SORN'd waiting for lots of time and money to be spent at some point in future

It's mot'd until March 16th, just had 2 new rear Falken 452's, oil and filter plus wheels balanced and new tax disc as well!

[Grant#1]

heater matrix hose ?
the two that go through the bulkhead

[pointz]

I still reckon its just a pipe if their was enough pressure in the coolant system to blow a water jacket on the Head i think it would almost certainly burst one of the 20 odd year old Nissan hoses first!

Their are 3 coolant lines in that gap you got heater matrix feed and return and turbo coolant line thats like 8 or so joints with crap Nissan jubilees.

Is the leak where i can see it spraying a jet of coolant at bulkhead or is it spraying towards engine?

Mine was spraying against bulkhead and was the small U shape hose under the inlet mani off the block. It had literally a pin hole in it and only opened up when up near full running temp!

[revver]

Aha cheers there may be hope yet then.

It's spraying out from engine to bulkhead direction very fast with engine idling. It even pours out fairly rapidly with the engine off when the rad cap is removed.

When the water has emptied (engine off obviously!) air can be heard escaping from the same place as the leak when squeezing top rad hose.

Will attempt to get another video up from a better angle/position facing engine from bulkhead tomorrow.