What are they?
Its just i check oil earlier, and looking at the oil carefully, i noticed, what looks like very small bubbles in the oil, whiteish colour. What else would these things be??
I keep topping my water up to max every so often as it drops, not a lot, it could be dropping to its preference, but i still top it up to max.
Stuart
You get that from doing lots of short journeys.
Oil and water mixing. The oil in the water is more noticeable (water in the oil boils away). Water loss is usually caused by other, less serious, faults (like a small radiator hole). Look for greasy oily patches in your water. If in doubt, flush the water system, drive, and look again. If you get oily deposits in the water after flushing the system, your head gasket is leaking. If you leave things to get worse, the vehicle will quickly overheat and you could get pressure in the water system causing the water to "bubble" as the engine runs.
Maybe I misunderstood the OPs problem, but I thought that he had bubbles in his oil - not, as you suggest, bubbles in his water.
Indeed. I'm puzzled about this too. Where do you look for bubbles in the oil?
Sounds like he's checking the oil on the dip stick and possible there are bubbles on the stick - water droplets covered in oil.
I've heard there is a another test where you cover the exhaust pipe for a few seconds and if the engine reacts in a certain way you have an engine problem - anyone know much about this test?
In news:c70qe5$h0i82$ snipped-for-privacy@ID-224936.news.uni-berlin.de, Stuart Turrell decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows
Ownership of a K series Rover engine is the major sign of a knackered head gasket.
HTH
haha, how you guess i have that engine.
I cant really fault the engine, its done 130k miles, and still going strong.
Yeah, i did see what looks like small bubbles on the dip stick. Not seen anything in the water tho, so thats ok.
Thanks for all your input
Stuart
Haha too true. Just had my Rover 414i done for head gasket, K series....
Nick
--
Not a sign but rather a test - unscrew the lid of your cooling liquid overflow tank (the one where you top up with water) get your mate to rev up the engine while idling (3-4 K rpm) and have a look inside the tank - if your head gasket is knackered you will see bubbles coming up. I learned this from an RAC mechanic when he was checking head gasket in my car for damage - water was running outside the tank like milk left on the stove.
Novice
Mine would fire, cough then cut out and require immediate restarting from cold when the gasket went. I can only assume that water was seaping into the chamber. Also when warm, if you opened the expansion chamber all the coolent would dissapear as if by magic.
Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.
Ask the community — no account required