Remember that “I got f*cked over” thread about my rebuilt KA?
I had to get the oil system flushed multiple times to clear out all the RTV sealant that was clogging the filter and pump, overused by none other than 240coupe.
It ran ok after that, and I was breaking it in so I did multiple oil changes in the meantime. It has been about 2500km’s so far.
I smelled a bit of coolant the other day and became extra cautious because I’m almost certain 240coupe built this engine rather than this “Anthony” guy he claims the job was subcontracted to (Draggone said the same thing after an inspection). This seems more and more apparent considering all the little issues that have been popping up.
Draggone was the person who got this car running fine after doing the oil flush and all that. He brought up an interesting point, the head probably wasn’t torqued down according to the FSM procedure or machined properly, and that this would show up sooner or later. He was right.
My coolant is now brownish with little particles floating at the top…failing headgasket?
Any ideas on wtf to do now guys? I have 240coupe’s number and I know where he lives. I’m supposed to have a 10,000km warranty in case any of you think I’m being unreasonable expecting compensation.
If you have warrenty on it and have his number and knows where he lives, then get it properly diagnosed and go get it fixed for free. If he implied a warrenty then its his problem not yours.
^^^^ second that notion, iron block rust out instantly when they see air, i had my rb block machined and had to flush the coolant a few times to get rid on the rust, in fact the rb i just got running had green coolant when i first fired it up and now its got almost brown coolant, after running it a few heat cycles
we do the same thing with our drag car every year. yet we only use water. coolant is not permitted. so we see extreme rust. takes a full day to get it all out before we turn the w/p on.
I went into the garage. It is not as brown as I initially thought, I see viscous and chunky oil residue on the walls of the coolant reservoir where the coolant level had dropped from. I could smell coolant when the engine was running. The color of the coolant is a milky green. I am almost certain oil has mixed with it. Also pulling off the oil cap, I can smell fuel in there. This seems to be a headgasket related issue.
About the warranty, it’s a complicated situation. I was supposed to get it when 240coupe installed the engine, but the person he claimed built the engine for him disappeared out of existence before giving me the warranty, build sheet or any of that. He claims no responsibility of it whatsoever, he says he just installed the engine…gay. I can’t take him to court either because it was a cash deal, and I’m an idiot and I didn’t make him sign anything since he was a friendly guy and I did not suspect wrongdoings of this extent, and because the engine was in the car and running when I paid him.
I’ve lost all faith in humanity, there’s very few people left with decency and an honest operation of a business instead of ripping ppl off and getting away with it. I should’ve listened to Draggone in the first place and professionally built my motor by his engine builder instead of doing an OEM rebuild to save some money. kicks self in the face
yeah when i got my motor swap at Intense Motorsports i had a madd over heating problem and part of it was the rust comming out form the block to my rad which cloged it up.
theres an acid you can get to flush it through
I had a similar problem. i bought this stuff called Iron tight and poured it in with the cooland and it stopped the leak that was 5 mothes ago and the car is running strong.( my problem was the head gasket had a hole in it due to not tightening the head right). the stuff costs 10 bucks at Parts Source.Its a cheap fix…hope that helps
I get a strong smell of gas in the oil when I take the oil cap off, but there doesn’t seem to be any coolant in the oil, just muddy coolant in the reservoir. The oil is really dirty though, considering I changed it like 2 weeks ago… I can occasionally smell coolant when driving. The car doesn’t smoke white like most cars that burn coolant. Also, when I started it up in -20 today, I was sniffing for coolant near the exhaust, and it just smelled a lot like fuel…most likely from the rich period during warmup.
I bought a compression tester, but my ratchet extension wasn’t long enough to reach the sparkplugs so I couldn’t proceed further, fail. lol
Thanks for your help guys, I’ll try to find my old ratchet extension tomorrow, so I can compression test it.
That’s a good idea, I’ll take some coolant out. I still need to figure out why my oil smells like gas. I have a big nose, so I can smell like a beagle. lol
Anyways, I bought an extension for my ratchet and performed a compression test. The battery was so weak, it could barely turn over the motor when I was doing the test…that probably threw off the accuracy of the test.
The results were 120 +/-5 psi on all 4 cylinders. Wtf? Also I opened the rad cap after cooldown and the coolant in the radiator was slightly browner than the natural bright green that it should be, no layer of oil floating on top. The coolant in the reservoir was way muddier in color, no visible rust chunks like earlier suggested.
My friend has an air compressor he uses for painting, would it be safe to just attach it to where the pressure gauge goes on the hose when compression testing, and just blast air into it? I’m assuming I’d leave the oil rad cap off to see where the air is leaking from for this leakdown test.
The reason I suspected it would be the HG is because of the coolant smell, dropping coolant levels, muddy brown color in the coolant, fuel smell in the oil (changed a few weeks ago…), and an intermittently shakey but stable idle.
The running rich part, there is no smoke or strong smell that comes from running pig rich, but I do get horrible gas mileage even when driving efficiently. I got 21mpg (record lol) with all highway driving. Usually I get about 17mpg with mixed driving, mostly highway. Even after a tuneup of all major things, plugs, wires, distributor, rotor, O2 sensor, catalytic convertor, coolant temp sensor, MAF cleaning, and now an engine rebuild lol. Draggone suggested it is probably a vacuum leak or something malfunctioning with the EGR system, which was screwed around with by a shop before I purchased my car and the previous owner tried to make it pass smog.
One thing at a time, with my limited budget I’m trying to take care of this car as best as possible, I’ve spent quite a bit so far.
Once again thanks for your help guys, it is really useful advice. I’ll do an oil change soon and probably bring it to draggone’s shop for a coolant flush. Seriously though, I just changed the oil 3 weeks ago, how rich is it running? lol