Advice Wanted on Potential Vigor Head Gasket Repai

[Anthony Giammarino]

Acura Vigor owner for the last 13 years. Mine is a 1994 with 198K miles that has been well maintained. Runs really really really good and smooth. It has never overheated. I JUST got it painted last week.

Since coming back from the body shop noticed the radiator fan running after I stopped the car. Fan turns off after a few minutes. Checked the overflow canister and it was about half filled with coolant – but didn’t open the radiator. Ambient temperature 30 – 45 degrees here in the North East / NJ for the past week.

Drove home last night – car warmed up normal. Stopped for 30 minutes a half mile from home and when I drove home had no heat. Opened radiator cap and saw only the top of the fins. It took 3 – 4 quarts of coolant but never built up pressure when I tried to bleed the system. Rechecked the radiator and saw level dropped and continued to drop as I added another quart or so. Pulled dip stick and saw high “oil” level. No coolant on the ground. Emptied the oil from the pan and it was way more than 4.5 quarts.

No smoke out the tail pipe, but thinking blown head gasket (will do compression check tomorrow).

Anything else come to mind? I did see your video and will check the oil cooler after pulling the intake.

If the head gasket, my concern is difficulty to remove the head bolts on 20+ year old car and possible bolt breakage (stories on acuravigorclub web site), along with if I redo the head will it eventually blow out the bottom of the engine/rings with the new compression?

I also saw your video on stop leak – so know you are not a fan of it. I’m not either, but wondering if this non-compression head gasket failure is a good candidate for it. The mechanic in our family had good things to say about Blue Devil brand.

Thank you for any help you can provide.
Anthony

Topic

[Agustin Alfonso Cesar Charles]

Go with the simple things…

Hoses, they may not leak in the usual places, but in the clamps, I had that problem for months, and it was a worn out clamp (20+ years vehicle).

Also the overflow hose, mine was broken at the clamp, also the drain plug. If the car doesn´t hesitate and starts normally, go for those things first.

Also do the dummy test, drain the coolant (if you can´t afford it but if you can, you can use coolant), fill up with water and watch for bubbles while accelerating, besides the air in the system, anything else maybe combustion gases into the coolant system.

Lastly, check your plugs, any plug that looks too clean, it may be an indication of a small headgasket leak.

Do remember, if the car doesn´t raise up, is an indication that you may be loosing coolant somewhere else.

[Ingvar]

Catastrophic coolant loss like this without any HEAVY smoke outta the tail pipe is NOT head gasket. If yes, you’d have had engine hydrolocked. It’s a hose somewhere.
Hope it’s not the case, but check floor carpet on heater core side. You may have leaking heater core that basically leaked coolant inside the car onto floor/carpet.
If coolant gets into oil, you WILL know. Either frappe or little coolant droplets all over the oil.
It’s a hose somewhere or a crack.

[Anthony Giammarino]

Thank you for the replies.

Yes, no smoke but the crank case was over filled with what had to be coolant.

I checked it days before and oil level was at normal level.

As I was filling the radiator it continued to drop down and dip stick showed about 3 x the level it should have been.

No frothing anywhere (did I just catch the fail?). I put a fair amount of the “oil” that I drained in a clear container, and I still don’t see the oil and water/coolant separation as of Saturday morning (drained late Thursday night).

Doing a compression test now.

[Ingvar]

Then I am confused.
1st you say this:

Pulled dip stick and saw high “oil” level. No coolant on the ground. Emptied the oil from the pan and it was way more than 4.5 quarts.

What tells us that there is not really a major oil overflow, or milk shake inside crankcase, and I have no idea how much oil your case normally takes. 4.5 qrts might as well be just fine.

Now you saying that crankcase is overfilled with coolant yet, it’s physically impossible without 2 fluids being mixed together somehow.

crank case was over filled with what had to be coolant.

You can always tell if coolant is in oil, either by little coolant droplets floating in oil or, by milkshake, created by oil pump action.

But either way, to me it looks more like cracked engine block, than blown head gasket.

[Anthony Giammarino]

Sorry for the confusion – let me clarify.

As a baseline – I checked oil level last Friday and it was in the normal range.

Thursday I drove home from work ~ 12 miles – car had heat with temp gauge needle showing the normal 1/3 (from “C”). Stopped at a store about a half mile from home for about 30 minutes, when I drove back home there was no cabin heat, and again the temp gauge showed normal. It was about 30 degrees outside.

I checked the radiator level when I got home and the top was empty. I added about 3 quarts and it filled to the top, so I put the radiator cap back on. I let it run for 10 minutes or so and went to bleed the coolant from the intake manifold and nothing came out. Checked coolant level again and it was low so I added more (about 2 quarts) and the level kept dropping as I watched the open radiator.

At this point I checked the dip stick and it was approximately 3 x above the high mark. I shut everything down and after the engine cooled, I drained the oil and out came approximately 9 quarts of what looked like thin black/brown oil. Standard oil change is 4.5 quarts.

So maybe the cooling system was really really low so taking 5+ quarts of coolant isn’t a red flag (8 quart capacity), but where did all the extra fluid come from when I drained the oil?

The 9 quarts don’t look abnormal, other than being on the thin (viscosity) side – to ukrkoz point of, “You can always tell if coolant is in oil, either by little coolant droplets floating in oil or, by milkshake, created by oil pump action.” That is, I don’t see droplets or milkshake, and I see no separation in the 3 quarts I put in a clear container Thursday night.

Is it really 9 quarts of oil is the key to this mystery. I just put the remaining oil (6 quarts) I pulled in clear containers to see if it will separate. Any thoughts on how long coolant and 5w-30 oil takes to separate?

I did a compression test today and all 5 cylinders are within normal range – 180, 180, 202, 195, 178

Thanks for listening.

Anthony

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