Replacing seals in my M20
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Well, it's been about 8 months since I did the head gasket change, and now I'm loosing coolant big time.....and it isn't leaking onto the ground. Have a feeling that my Reinz head gasket blew and I'm going to have to do this again. Dropping the car off at the shop to have them do a good diagnosis on it just to make sure, but I have a really bad feeling.
Oddly enough (or not), the engine seems to run fine. Just did a valve adjustment on it a week ago and it's a lot quieter now than it was too.
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I ran a Victor Reinz gasket on boost. It survived, the piston rings didnt.
That sucks. I doubt mine is the piston rings though. The only things I can think of that would cause internal coolant loss like this is either blown head gasket or cracked block. The former I can deal with, albeit reluctantly as it's only a couple hundred bucks and a few days worth of work. The latter will be the death of the car. Although an M50 swap could be cool, I don't have the money for an engine swap. This is my DD, so any new engine would require a complete rebuild in order to ensure reliability, and I don't have the money for that, even if I were to try it myself which don't have the time for or knowledge to attempt.
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You'd also think that it would have leaked coolant all over the place too. This is why I'm thinking that cracked block or head, or even a loose coolant bleed bolt on the block are probably out of the question - no external leakage. I'm just surprised that the car is still running so well. It's like there's nothing wrong except that the coolant warning light keeps coming on, and I have to keep adding coolant.
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Well, it's official. Either blown head gasket or cracked head. Won't know which until I get the damned car apart....again. Leaning against the cracked head as there really isn't any reason it should have cracked in the past week under normal driving. Hopefully my work schedule will allow me to get the thing torn apart within the next week so i can get on this and get it done. Think I'm going with FelPro gasket and bolts this time, though.
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You're probably right. Was doing some reading on E30tech and hearing about all of the bad luck everybody has had with VR gaskets. Sounds like the goetze and FelPro might be worth a risk, but it also sounded like the BMW gasket, although more expensive, was far better quality.
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