ETA Head Gasket troubles?

[LateFan]

We dodged another one! The last time he did this he drove across the country a couple of weeks after we finished swapping in a manual. Man my fingers were crossed then!

He still has an external oil leak from the exhaust side of the head gasket about cylinders 2 3. I'm assuming that head will have to come off again sometime.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

[jeffnhiscars]

One of my favorite questions when car shopping is to ask the seller is what would they do to it before their kid drove it 1000miles back to college. It's the acid test and you passed it seems with flying colors

[LateFan]

Welp, that car is back in IL after 1500 trouble free miles. Oil still looks new he says.

[LateFan]

Very helpful advice, thank you.

This car just drove 700 miles straight shot to Baltimore - not a sign of any issue with any fluid, no goo, and it got 30 mpg...... (!)

I worry too much too - he's my kid! So, fingers crossed still but very pleased.

[TobyB]

he moved to a humid place, then it sat a while, and it's all been very short trips to work since then.

It will be fine. That little bit of goo was probably condensing inside the dipstick, and dripped onto it when he pulled it.

The E30 in particular (and BMWs in general) dump a lot of moisture in their warmup cycle. Some of that water
(as vapor) gets into the oil via the rings. If the oil never gets up to temperature, it'll condense in all the cool,
high places (top of the dipstick, oil cap, etc).

We get that around here in the E39 that drives the 2 miles to town. But not in the E46s that commute
the 30 miles to "da ciddy".

t
wouldn't worry about that.
And I worry about waaaay too much chit.

[LateFan]

TobyB - good one! My little city is 80k-ish, the head replacement was in a place of about 4500 an hour away.

Jeff - thanks! Little old lady who only drove Sundays....in the autocross!

So...it's been several weeks. He's watching it like a hawk now. He drained a bit of oil out of the pan and it was normal - no coolant. He changed it anyway with fresh. Coolant color is normal and not dropping. Never gets hot driving. The dipstick schmoo has never reappeared. I don't think the problem has gone away, but he feels like maybe he missed an oil change so there were some miles on it, he moved to a humid place, then it sat a while, and it's all been very short trips to work since then.

So..... a little bit of leakage at the HG? Some condensation in the system from not getting it warm and driving it? I can't tell from here. He's having a difficult time getting into a good shop to do a leak-down and a coolant pressure test. Emailed a local autocross car club to see if he could learn what the good shops are.

Now he's decided to drive 700 miles and back tomorrow on a 3-day surprise work break. Central Illinois to Baltimore and back. He changed the oil again, checked all fluids, and is taking spare. He'll keep it slow, 65-70 (is that normal over there on Interstates?) Make sure it doesn't get warm, take breaks and check it. AAA card. He feels confident in it.

[jeffnhiscars]

If it turns out you need an eta head, I've got Alices old head on a shelf (build thread is in my sig). 134k w a true little old lady original owner...not sure if she drove to church on Sunday :)

[TobyB]

Hey! I live in a small town, too, here!

t
whose shit tends to blow up, so nevermind.

[ForcedFirebird]

VR gaskets leak oil on the exhaust side

if the HG is blown in the right place... I think only a couple places... coolant will leak in the oil and badly. I know from experience. the cracked head... also experienced... a pressure test is a must.. it's expensive for a new and properly fit head... but I feel good about the whole engine now. I'm at 305k. if that makes any sense at all. sent from hell using Tapatalk

I will beg to differ. In my personal experience (probably 50 m20 HG's and I even have 7 cracked heads on my shelf), I have NEVER seen oil/water mix outside of a cracked head. In fact, in Feb one of the rental drivers let the m20 get so hot, water instantly boiled off the intake manifold. I didn't have the IR gun handy, but based on experience the head had to be 300+f. Still no mixing, even though we could see coolant spewing out of the middle cylinder during a comp test.

Look closely at an m20 HG and find where the coolant and oil has a chance to mix. There's 6 large oil drain holes on the exhast side, and one tiny oil feed right next to the middle head bolt. All the cooling passages are at least 1/2" (12.5mm) away.

[LateFan]

$10 says the person, that performed the repair, used a VR head gasket set. this is exactly what happens, when those fail.

I'll bet $10 on the local tractor store or NAPA. They do have a NAPA.

[cheffy30]

Thanks. I'm thinking if the shop in the little town knew more, or were paid to do it right by the PO, we wouldn't be asking all these questions. If we pull it and find a crack, then we'll need a good solid one to machine. Makes me wonder if they welded up the crack and put it back on... I need to learn about measuring warpage, and heat straightening, so they don't just machine it flat and the cam binds. And what the minimum thickness is and where to measure that. Probably threads on that here on r3v somewhere. These machine shop videos are good. John Edwards was his name. He sadly died in 2017 I just read. https://www.youtube.com/user/fiatnutz/videos

.002 is factory acceptable spec. I believe. some cracks can be welded. others can not. I bought an new AMC 885 head for my 325i. I didn't want to trust a used one... who knows how long it would last. sent from hell using Tapatalk

[e30austin]

$10 says the person, that performed the repair, used a VR head gasket set. this is exactly what happens, when those fail.

[LateFan]

Thanks. I'm thinking if the shop in the little town knew more, or were paid to do it right by the PO, we wouldn't be asking all these questions. If we pull it and find a crack, then we'll need a good solid one to machine. Makes me wonder if they welded up the crack and put it back on...

I need to learn about measuring warpage, and heat straightening, so they don't just machine it flat and the cam binds. And what the minimum thickness is and where to measure that. Probably threads on that here on r3v somewhere.

These machine shop videos are good. John Edwards was his name. He sadly died in 2017 I just read.

https://www.youtube.com/user/fiatnutz/videos

[cheffy30]

if the HG is blown in the right place... I think only a couple places... coolant will leak in the oil and badly. I know from experience. the cracked head... also experienced... a pressure test is a must.. it's expensive for a new and properly fit head... but I feel good about the whole engine now. I'm at 305k. if that makes any sense at all. sent from hell using Tapatalk

[LateFan]

That is really good info, thanks. We've never touched the head bolts because we were told they're a one-use bolt and you shouldn't re-torque them. It's never gotten hot while we've had it. I'll send him the oil drain idea. Had he known there was a question, he would have watched it drain into an open pan, so we don't know what it looked like. I told him another 5 qts of oil is a cheap way to learn some things.

Yeah, the condensation thing is hard on city cars that only get little errand trips.

Depending on what we find, I was just thinking I'd call you to see if you had any good eta heads on the shelf.