james-wrx

car has been overheating and loosing coolant through the overflow, rad had a leak on the end cap etc.
Today i have spend £200 on a new rad, thermostat etc and had the engine chemicaly tested for head gasket failure, after having the new rad and thermostat put in, went up the road and when i got back is was bubbling coolant out of the overflow again, so decided to chemicaly test for head gasket failure again, passed this test again!
mechanic is still saying head gasket as this is the only possible explination!
Has anyone had a similar experiance?
The car has a built 2.2 L engine so dropping another engine in isnt really an option!
Im gutted to say the least, thinking of breaking the car and the engine and selling the bottom end etc
What do we all think?

james

uk_scoob

air lock ?

im having similar problems . and cant understand it either. ive removed the thermo stat, and it seems to have solved the problem . but this is no real fix

james-wrx

I was thinking about doing that tomorrow as the car is driveable if you dont use boost it doesnt loos a lot of coolant, just drove it 60 miles and it lost a litre, aparently the headgasket can be at fault but only push gases out under boost, even so i would have thought the chemical test would have showed it up as the gases are still bubbling out on idle!

davesti330

Similar problem with mine.New radiator and hoses then drove on holiday losing no water because i was driving off boost but as soon as i but the boot in it comes out the overflow. Mine also passed the chemical test but you cant really generate boost unless the car is moving so i've decided to change my gaskets before it causes any serious damage

james-wrx

Exactly my thoughts, the only thing it can be is HG problem is I think they skimmed the heads right down when they built the engine to raise the compression ratio, the engine has been described as a strung out race engine
whatever thet means, i think he meant it's all on the edge or something!