Steamin' VN

[Feral01]

Got a series 1 VN. Recently overhauled the cooling system - new thermostat, water pump, cap etc. NOW.....the car idles rough first thing in the morning and produces heaps of steam which appears to disappear once it has warmed up. Its also loosing about 2 litres of coolant over about two weeks. Sounds like head gasket to me. Any ideas?

[89vncommy]

Check the oil to see if there is any milky like substance in there .. When engine coolant mixes with it, then that is the case and one of the easy ways to see bhg ...

Or, the other I thik is to take the leads off, get the spark pulugs out, and then crank over the car.. If water shoots out, then BHG ...

The next one, is to take the radiator cap off, and when the car is running see if the radiator water is bubbling ... And you can always get a mechanic to do a pressure test...

But loosing water like that is always not a good sign for the head gasket...

[immortality]

where does the steam come for????

[Feral01]

Steam comes from the exhaust..heaps of it.

[[JUDGE]]

my dad told me not to use water in these engines as they are alloy and to only use coolant, other wise the engine will rust away.

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

Use demineralized water and a good corrosion inhibitor. And alloy doesn't rust, but I know what you meant.

Take the plugs out and check the condition of them, if the coolant was going into a cylinder, one or more plugs will be really clean, not brown like like they should be as it would be getting steam cleaned.

[Feral01]

Use the commie V6 Coolant...you know the one!

[samuels]

Got a series 1 VN. Recently overhauled the cooling system - new thermostat, water pump, cap etc. NOW.....the car idles rough first thing in the morning and produces heaps of steam which appears to disappear once it has warmed up. Its also loosing about 2 litres of coolant over about two weeks. Sounds like head gasket to me. Any ideas?

can you smell the coolant burning?
do as others have suggested,but keep in mind,oil doesn't always have to be milky,for blown head gasket,you may well only have a leaky inlet manifold,when it's warmed up,the heat of the motor may well be enough to expand enough to cover the blown area,would only have to be a small tear,otherwise it would run roughly at hot or cold(inlet manifold)look down each corner,see if there is any signs of water/coolant/rust marks.
also a good sign of a blown headgasket,if you haven't got a compression tester is,the plugs tend to get a greenish tinge to them,greenish tinge is water....

[Feral01]

Inlet manifold? Where? (is this dumb**s question?)

[samuels]

Inlet manifold? Where? (is this dumb**s question?)

no it's not a dumb question
it's the big alloy plate looking thing in the middle of your motor,your coolant and temp sensors are attached to it,as well as the injection rails,amongst other things....when you look at your motor,you will see 3800(V6) in red(if paint hasn't peeled away) right in the middle of the raised section of inlet manifold.

[Feral01]

Found the problem - leaking coolant from the rear of the inlet manifold under the thermostat housing (which isn't leaking), and I guess going into the one of the rear cylinders as well....guess what I'm doin' next weekend.

[Disperse_daredevil]

Thats how i got my car...
the guy I bought it off said it needed a new engine cos the water was leaking into the piston. I bought it off him for $800 and whacked on a new inlet manifold gasket, tightened it down and the steam was gone.

Doesn't take long to do, but my geuss is that you will need a new gasket (dont go and buy one before you have a look yourself though). In my opinion the design of these gaskets is not the best as they allow the water to travel along the seal and then drip into the piston.

Also if the inlet valve of that particular piston is open when you stop the engine, it can become full of water and the engine can hydrolic on next start.