Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 22:37:48 -0600
Reply-To: John Rodgers <jh_rodgers@BELLSOUTH.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: John Rodgers <jh_rodgers@BELLSOUTH.NET>
Subject: Re: help needed diagnosing blown head gasket
In-Reply-To: <3FF381B4.6070504@ispwest.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Ben, before you run your van again, GET A COMPRESSION TEST!!!!! Even if
you have to go and buy a guage yourself. Here is why.
Driving around in Santa Fe, NM I started to notice that as I would go
around to the right on right hand clover leaf ramps on highways, my van
would blow white smoke. On the straight-away it would not. Didn't seem
to do it on left hand turns. Then on a drive back to Alabama, a few
miles out from Clinton, Ok on a Saturday night, I was crusing along
doing about 70 on I-40 when there was loud POP!!! I couldn't imagine
what it was. There was no change in any of my guages, van handled well,
all seemed well. Then a tractor trailer rig began to pull up from behind
and I could see in the rear view mirror in the approaching lights what
seemed like smoke boiling around the truck. Then it dawned on me that
the smoke was COMING FROM ME!!! I was approaching an off ramp and I left
the highway and pulled into a truck stop.
Walking around to the rear I saw the rear of the van was covered with
oil. Looking underneath, oil was dripping. I could not imagine what the
problem was. Figured a split line or blown gasket somewhere. One of the
service people checked the oli, found it off the dip stick. Put oil back
in the engine, started it up, and oil ran out underneath. Being late
evening on Saturday night. Nothing was going to happen until Monday, so
I have the vehicle picked up and taken into the nearest town....Clinton,
OK. On Monday, i went to the garage where the van had been taken, and
the mechanic said I had a valve cover gasket leak, and he went ahead and
installed a new one. While I was standing there, after checking the oil,
the engine was started. No Oil leak. In just a few moments the mechanic
helper revved the engine just a bit and POP!!! something blew and oil
came pouring out. WE could see the Rocker cover gasket blown out on the
left side for the engine. . That was puzzling. The mechanic pulled the
plugs on that side and did a compression check. "0" compression on the
left front cylinder. The mechanic surmised a number of potential
problems, but none for sure.
I rented a U-haul truck and an auto-trailer, loaded the van up, and
drove to Birmingham, AL, delivering the van to a mechanic I knew and
trusted. I asked the mechanic to pull the engine, and then pull the
cylinders.
When I went to see the mechanic, he showed me a horriffic sight. One
side of the piston and cylinder was badly scored and galled with the
rings acutally seized in the lands. There was a hole in the top of the
piston at the edge, burned clear through, the size of a quarter to a
half-dollar. There was metal all in the engine. I opted for a complete
engine overhaul, with a all new pistons and cylinders.
With the disclosure of the hole in the piston, the cause of blowing out
of the seals became clear. When I was out on I-40 and the hole
developed, the compression of the cylinder was blowing through the hole,
pressurizing the crankcase to the point that the pressure would blow up
through the pushrod housings into the rocker cover, and blow out the gasket.
The smoke while driving in Santa Fe, was a warning of impending failure
of the piston. I didn't pay attention, and go and have a compression
check. Later, when there was a loud POP, and smoke everywhere, just like
the smoke in Santa Fe, was again and announcement something was
radically wrong. A compression check finally disclosed a major problem.
Fortunately I looked into it before losing all oil and throwing a rod
through the block, which the 2.1 L WBX is prone to do.
There are many things in my experience with my van that parllel what you
are experiencing.
The smoke you are experiencing is a BIG warning!!!! The only way to know
about the integrity of your engine is to do a compression check.
Otherwise, you risk and engine failue.
Note!!! Not one time did I ever have the oil light to come on,
thoroughout all this!!! Yet the engine had essentially failed.
Best of luck with this.
Regards,
John Rodgers
88 GL Driver
Ben S wrote:
> so the holidays were going well, i had just found a nice cheap apt in
> south lake tahoe and had gone down to the bay area to pick up a load of
> stuff and do some routine maintenance on the van. i changed the oil and
> replaced a broken throttle spring and made a late departure for the
> mountain.
>
> around 1am, i was driving up 50 with my gf following in her car. the
> van was running strong. when suddenly, my oil pressure light and buzzer
> came on. i killed the engine immediately and coasted to a stop. i got
> out and checked the dipstick, it looked dry. i got on my back in a nice
> snowy puddle and looked around. there appeared to be a few drops of
> fresh looking oil hanging from various parts of the engine. i checked
> the drain plug and filter, thinking i must have installed them
> incorrectly, but there didn't seem to be any fresh oil around either and
> the filter felt tight. i had 3 more quarts of oil, which i put in and
> continued to drive since i was stopped in a bad spot. at first, the
> engine felt a little weak, but once i got up to 3rd gear it felt normal.
> after about 7 miles, the oil pressure warning came on again. this
> time, i got my gf to drive me up to town where i called for a tow. i
> got to my place around 3am and crashed.
>
> this afternoon, i went to take a better look. at this point i was still
> thinking that my problem was some kind of oil leak, so first i checked
> the oil level. it was overfilled. this leads me to beleive that
> perhaps i made an erronous reading the night before. it was dark and
> snowing; i was on a steep hill on a blind curve blocking half a lane and
> was quite anxious and hurried. so i started the engine cautiously. it
> started easily and idled smoothly. the oil pressure light stayed off.
> and huge clouds of white smoke billowed from the exhaust.
>
> now i've heard enough stories to know this usually means coolant getting
> burned due to a blown head gasket. so i checked the coolant. the
> previous day when i had changed the oil, the coolant was halfway between
> the min and max line, now it was just below the min line (in the
> recovery tank). i pulled the pressure cap off the expansion tank and
> looked at that coolant--no sign of oil. i drained all the oil and saw
> no sign of coolant.
>
> so all in all, it sounds a lot like a cleanly blown head gasket that is
> letting me burn coolant without any coolant-oil mixing. the one thing
> that is confusing me is why my oil pressure light came on twice.
>
> i'd like to drive down off the mountain to a warmer altitude where i
> have a friend who could help me out and a more pleasant environment to
> work in, but i'm afraid of doing more damage to my engine if the oil
> pressure really is dropping or if coolant gets into the oil. i've
> heard stories of people driving vanagons with blown head gaskets for
> hundreds of miles, continuously adding coolant, but i never heard them
> say anything about oil pressure issues, just white smoke and
> dissapearing coolant.
>
> do these symptoms sound consistant with a blown head gasket? would it
> be safe to drive a couple hundred miles to santa rosa to fix there or
> should i try to get it fixed up here in the mountains? any ideas why
> the oil light came on? could this be anything besides a blown head
> gasket? if i was burning oil, would the smoke still be white? are
> there any other tests that i can run without a compression tester?
> anyone in the south lake tahoe area want to help me fix this? i've got
> no problem paying for help, i just hate going to a mechanic because then
> i don't get to be involved and learn anything.
>
> thanks in advance for any advice!
>
> Ben.
>
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