t5 head gasket ?

[st5ve]

hi all, i wonder if anyone could advise me on what could be wrong with my pride and joy. its a 97 v7o t5 with 157k on the clock. a couple of weeks ago i noticed a fair bit of oil in the radiator expantion tank , automatically thought h/gasket and after a lot of grunting and swearing changed this along with all new belts , now the problem is back! . could it be something else such as the oil cooler or something?

[shaun850]

possibly a warped head, but you'd notice that straight away...

i'd do a compression check, when you replaced the h/g had it deffo gone?

[st5ve]

hi shaun gasket looked o.k when removed but couldnt think of anything else at the time

[MWT5]

Had Headgasket Failure On A 205 Gti. Gasket Blew Between The Oil And Water Ways And Not The Cylinders Which Produced The Same Symptoms You Had. Did You Have The Head Checked To See If It Needed Skimming?

[BlackBeast]

Did You Have The Head Checked To See If It Needed Skimming?

Any time you take the head off you should at least get it checked to see if its straight. As shaun 850 said above, do a compression test before taking the head off again.

[NugentS]

hi all, i wonder if anyone could advise me on what could be wrong with my pride and joy. its a 97 v7o t5 with 157k on the clock. a couple of weeks ago i noticed a fair bit of oil in the radiator expantion tank , automatically thought h/gasket and after a lot of grunting and swearing changed this along with all new belts , now the problem is back! . could it be something else such as the oil cooler or something?

Could be the radiator as they have an oil cooler inside and failure here can mix the oil and water...

Sean

[pault5]

hi,
yes it is not uncommon for the radiator with built in oil cooler to be leaky.

[st5ve]

i have no loss of power , would this point more towards oil cooler than h/ gasket, thanks all

[poochingaround]

You must carry out both a cylinder compression test and a coolant system pressure test to ascertain where the problem lies .If when head gasket was initially changed you appeared to have eradicted the fault then it is as previously stated highly likely that your cylinder head is warped.This would not be evident solely by a visual check.This would require surface grinding .

[BigJC]

Get a sniff test done, this examines the gases present in the coolant. I'd get the rad checked, my old 854 T5 had a faulty radiator which mixed the oil & coolant and caused overheating on the odd occaision.
New rad, all smiles!!

[blackbooty]

saab 2.3 turbo's have a habit of cracking the head between the valves which mixes the fluids (had experience of this one) and theres next to no power decrease.

[st5ve]

thanks guys , will get all checks done & keep you posted. fingers crossed its the rad ! cheers.