is this a cylinder head gasket failure?

hello there! i have an escort 1989 1.3 litre ohv. intermittently,the more i press the accelerator, the more the car runs badly. i checked the spark plugs, number 1 and number 4 are clean, number 2 and number

3 are covered in red kludge,like fossils. I did a compression test at home twice. in the first test cylinders 1 and 4 registered 11.8 while 2 and 3 gave a 6 and a 7. but on the second tests they all got more than 11 bar.

is this consistent with cylinder gasket failure?any other checks i can do?

thnks

Reply to
beerismygas
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ould well be, is it using coolant?

Reply to
Duncan Wood

beerismygas explained :

Sounds like rust or rusty water entering the cylinder, lots of it. I would also expect lots of water loss and lots of gunge around the oil filler.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

whats puzzling me is that the problem is intermittent.i ve been driving around all day today without problems.

under what conditions can a head gasket problem be intermittant?

also i am reading that the red rust like deposits on the plug mught be remains from LRP additive and that coolant leves a green color on the plugs. But if this was so, wouldnt all plugs be red colored? why just those two adjacent ones?

thx

Reply to
beerismygas

Thus spake beerismygas ( snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com) unto the assembled multitudes:

The gasket leak(s), if any, would only affect the cylinders which are leaking, so only their plugs would show this discolouration. Have you checked your engine oil recently? If your head gasket is blown then there would probably also be an escape of coolant into the oil, which isn't a good thing. Why not take the car to a motor mechanic and get it checked out, if you're not confident of diagnosing the problem yourself? Surely better than driving it around hoping the problem will just go away.

Reply to
A.Clews

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