headgasket gone?

[tick73]

hi

what are the signs of a blown headgasket?

i have the following.

oil has got into the expansion bottle.

needs topping up with about 1 litre of water after about 20 miles.

small amount of water going out of exhaust, but no white smoke, it just trickles out.

im about to take the head off, but want to know if anything else could cause these symptons?

[kenney]

Which engine do you have?

[tick73]

its a 1.8, single point injection

[kenney]

Need the engine code

[hongkongstuey]

litre per 20 miles sounds pretty terminal, warm car up to 90c, fill coolant bottle to the brim, look for bubbles, mine bubbled every 5 or 6 seconds, if yours is using that much coolant then i suspect its getting close to destruction/warpage, is it leaking out onto the floor or not? im suspecting its getting into cylinders

[tick73]

engine code isABS440421

i have got the head off, the head gasket looked in bad shape with some off it looking rotten, with evidence that water /oil moving between the holes, but gasket remained intact.

in between the inlet manifold and head, is there a rubber seal , like there is on a normal mk2?
will be flushing out the pipework tomorrow as there was def oil and water mixing, and a bit of the creamy white crap. and there was water sitting on top of the pistons.

i want to check it if there is and its ok, but cant undo the bolts the sit in the middle of the manifold.

[kenney]

There is a rubber seal between the manifold and the head,but this has nothing to do with oil in the coolant.Since your engine does not have an oil cooler,there is only one place the oil can come from,and that is the oil channel for the camshaft lubrication,so i think you are on the right track,head gasket.The water on top of the pistons has probably run in when you took the head off.