Bad Head Gasket!!!,

[Mike Chose]

Hello to all the dirty people out there.
I hope I am using this area for the appropriate reason, but I am having a confusing issue with a 99 Honda Civic DX 1.6 SOHC D16Y7. The car started over heating and has 160k and I figured instead of diagnosing I would replace everything within the cooling system due to the miles and unknown previous services. I replaced Upper/lower hoses, thermostat ( only one way it can go in, dummy proof), thermo switch & sensor, water pump and timing belt. The car continued to over heat. Found thermo switch to be a little wacky so I got one from Honda and things changed for the better, however…. If I drive locally or let the car idle in the driveway for two hours N/P. If I drive on the highway for an hour @ 70-80 guaranteed to over heat. The radiator looks good, there are no leaks, oil is perfect. I took off valve cover and no milk, and no smoke out of the tail pipe. Block test failed, turned green. Compression to cylinders are all the same and hold steady. Any body have an idea, could head gasket blow and not leak. Another wired thing is when bleeding the cooling system the bubbles never stopped after two hours. The car is 100% stock. Any ideas would be awesome. Thanks

Topic

[Its me]

A few things…

You replaced almost everything in the cooling system… How is the radiator fan doing? is it coming on at the right time? A/C in effect? Is the Condenser fan coming on as soon as you turn on the A/C?

Have you pressure tested the system for leaks… Vehicles can overheat because cooling systems work because the boiling point of water/coolant is lowered when under pressure… Take that away and overheating can occur… This can also happen due to a bad radiator cap…

Now to the point… There can be different types of head gasket failures and that depends on where they are…

Oil will not always show up (the jackets sealing may be fine)…

Compression tests don’t always catch the initial head gasket failure… Are you doing the compression tests on a hot engine… Maybe, but not likely… Here is why they don’t show up…

With aluminum block engines, the head may seal fine until it warms up and the engine starts withstanding great pressures… Sometimes that is enough to blow combustion gasses into the coolant jacket… Hence the bubbles…

I think you may be on right track with head gasket issue… A failed block test and bubbles when bleeding….

If you go the headgasket route, ensure that the engine deck and the new head are both within tolerances… The old days of just slapping in a new head gasket on cast iron engines are gone.. Aluminum warps and if it isn’t fixed, a new headgasket is not long for this world…

JMHO

-Karl

[Ingvar]

The only way it will overheat from bad gasket is when exhaust gas goes into coolant. Open radiator cap and start the engine. Cold, of course.
Do you have something that looks like beer foam coming up towards radiator neck? That’s your exhaust gas. Or, you can buy/rent leak tester and do test.
Also, you may have as simple as air lock somewhere in the cooling system.
Of course, like Karl said – do the fans start?

[Mike Chose]

Thanks for the response. Yes I replaced the fan motor and tested. It was hard to duplicate the overheat since letting it idle or driving around town would never cause the overheat. So I wired up a temp gauge and a way to manually turn on the fan. Normally the thermo switch worked fine after I bought the one from Honda, the car would goto 200 then fan would kick on and drop to 180 and so fourth. On the highway the car would stay at 180 until a certain point, the best I can say is roundabout 1 hour. Weather does not seem to mater, morning, afternoon, rush hour, no one on the road, the best I ban say is 1 hour. (Average time to get to or from work and would always over heat less than a mile away). So anyway once I saw the temp go to 110 it’s over, ac on off, heat on/off, fan manually switch on nothing will cool it down at this point. The a/c worked perfect yes the fan would come on and seemed to be normal operation, one weird thing though is when it would start to overheat the heat would be cool at first, and would have the heat selected for the whole drive with blower off, overheat would start so turn the blower to high and seemed cold for a minute to two. Other than that heat and a seemed great. I also left the fan to run the entire trip and car would stay around 176-185. Overheat still came. It seemed to me that it would run perfect for a while then at one point lights out and there’s no coming back unless you turn off the car and wait. Always highway after an hour. Changed thermostat three times, all the same. Changed thermo sensor twice, first one ( Oreilly) was goofy but ok after using a Honda one.

[Mike Chose]

The compression test could have been done partly in correct. I let it warm up to 180 , the disconnected distributor, fuel pump relay, removed plugs, so in hind sight it could’ve still been on the cold side.

[Lorrin Barth]

Probably what you are seeing is the slow buildup of exhaust gases in the engine displacing coolant. With a small head gasket leak this takes a while. The cool heater probably means it is full of exhaust gas.

The modern engine most common (but not always) mode of head gasket failure is no oil in the coolant and no coolant in the oil only products of combustion leaking to the cooling system. With a big leak you find the coolant in the reservoir or on the ground.

[Randy Koffler]

Its possible the head gasket has blown but I have never seen one blow and not use any coolant weather is burn it off or leak any and still put compression in the system for it to bubble. Make sure your intake gasket is good as well and is not allowing air into the system.

[Lorrin Barth]

In turbo cars you can get head lifting that only occurs at maximum boost. Get out of boost and the problem is gone. It is like an on/off switch. In turbo cars you also get what looks like boiling in the reservoir and coolant on the ground.

This ‘how far I drive’ problem is interesting and I’m not sure I understand it but he says he has steady bubbling from the radiator.

[Mike Chose]

I think Barneyb got it. When the car overheats the coolant over flow is full and leaking from there. That is the only place it will leak from. But exactly what will happen. Today the head comes off will keep up to date as I find anything. Thanks everyone and hope to be able to help out as well. Thanks awesome people and thanks again

[Mike Chose]

Started to work on the car and one of the first things I see is….

I don’t believe this would put gases in coolant, but could it be the cause of the head gasket failure?

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[Mike Chose]

got the head off and brought it up to the shop. The guy sad it looks like cylinder 2,3,4 were leaking a little, they will test and resurface and i’ll post the results

[Lorrin Barth]

Interesting find but I don’t feel it would have anything to do with a head gasket failure. However, it would not do anything good for the reading the computer is getting off of the O2 sensor.

[Austin]

Agreed with barney, won’t effect your head at all, will throw off your o2 readings though.

[Mike Chose]

Ok so the head is off, but when I removed it 2 dowel pins fell off. I collected them but only found 2. went online to buy replacements and only com two to a pack. My question is are ony two needed or should there be four. looked every where and can only find two so i guess thats all that is needed? thanks to everyone again, Mike

[EricTheCarGuy]

Well you already got the head off so I suppose checking for air in the cooling system is out of the question at this point. I feel that replacing ‘everything’ in place of diagnosis is somewhat flawed logic, especially if you didn’t use Honda parts, but that’s just my opinion. That said, I’ll do what I can to answer your questions.

First, you only need 2 dowels so you should be good there. Second, air in the cooling system can effect the sensors to the degree that they won’t read correctly and as a result may not turn on fans at the correct time. I think you should go back to the stock wiring set up on that one. The cracked exhaust manifold is VERY common with that engine and has nothing to do with the overheat. It will effect your O2 readings and should be replaced to prevent that. If not it will effect performance and fuel economy.

Be sure you bleed the cooling system correctly when you’re done with your work to prevent further issues. More info and a video on that process can be found here.

http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/what-to-do-when-your-engine-overheats

Good luck and keep us posted.

[Mike Chose]

Thanks for the reply Eric, I bought a spill proof funnel to bleed the cooling system. I dont belive the car has a bleed screw, so i attached the funnel and let it go for a hour and a half, bubbles never stoped. I day later repeated the same procees for two hours and again the bubbles never stoped. I watced your video on bleeding the cooling system and followed it to the T. I belive that process should have removed all of the air in the system. I agree about replacing everything before diagnosing, at the time thought it was the right thing to do. Lesson well learned. As far as the OM honda parts, another lesson well learned. After replacing the fan switch with a Honda one it did run much better, but still the overheat. By testing and second guessing my crap parts, I went through two thermostats even though the testing was correct, by eliminating parts one by one and with some help with the guys from the site it seemed a bad head gasket was the cause. it just threw me for a loop with oil and exaust being perfect, was looking for “milk” or smoke. So ripped off the head and brought to the local shop and the guy said cylinders 2,3,4 were leaking. I bought a good (i hope) steel head gasket around 200.00, would you coat that in the copper paint or just install as is? I would think that it being steel would not have to coat it with anything? thanks for the info as far as the two dowels, was looking everywhere for the other two with no luck. I cantt figure out why the head gasket went bad though, the car does have 180k and did over heat a few times, couldve that caused it? Thanks again and hope all is good with you, what youve done in my eyes is awesome thanka, Mike

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