Hey Guys,

i Have a 1986 740 GL that i bought for $200 recently

it was driven by backpackers here and it overheated and now there appears to be oil in the water

the guy i bought it off suspects it to either have a blown head gasket or a Blowing head gasket i guess what im asking is since its oil in the water and not water in the oil is there any tempory fixes to beable to use the car as a daily driver until i find a new engine top put in it.

also when starting the vehicle it takes ALOT of cranking to finally get it to start ittl crack and crack and crank till the battery is neally flat until all of the sudden vroom we have liftoff

any ideas there also? could it be compression loss due to the head gasket?

people tell me there are some water additives you can add to seal a blowing head gasket is that a option i have its just i havent been sucessful in finding a engine yet and the car still has 2 months of rego left and i wanna use it round town i dun wanna waste the rego.

regards

Dale.

one thing i qalso forgot to mention was that once it cranks and starts it runs perfectly no missing no bad idle very smooth idle jsut a **** to crank LOL

i must say that upon first starting it sounds like a suburu WRX but that soon evens out could it be bad plugs / leads mabye? am i better off changing cap / rotor / plugs / leads mabye even coil as i have all those spare here and give it a coolant / oil change and change the filters like fuel / air etc etc then see

jsut a thought


Dale.

the oil is only in the water? do you have oil covered plugs at all? oil burning smell from exhaust? smoke from the filler cap?

Matt

Have Not Had a good look yet only jsut had the car delievered home

and the oil is only very minor in the water and when i check the oil its not milky

Dale.

Hey Guys,

i pulled each plug one at a time and yes they are heavily oil fowled

Yes There Appears To Be Only Oil In Water As The Oil In The Sump Is Fine No Milky Color Or Notihng

there is a slight bit of smoke from filler cap but no oil burning smell in exhaust jsut the normal exhaust / fuel smell

im assuming the oil fowled plugs would be the key to taking ages to fire
as oil is a good insulator.

it is getting rather hot but im simply assuming that the major key to that is that the coolant or whats left of it in there is a real timid green very light green id say theres probably more water in there than coolant which wouoldnt be helping so im going to change the radiator and hoses and the expansion tank as i have all new ones of those here and ill put fresh coolant in after reverse flushing the engine and see how goes

what do you guys think

Dale.

well its a start!

UPDATE!!!!

i have inspected engine as it has a badly cracked head so im goign to swap engines out of a 1989 740 GL i bought from the local insurance company here as a non repairable writeoff

im going to swap engine and box as the gearbox in this car too is a bit iffy


Regards

Dale.

Just a suggestion for you. After 20 + years as a mechanic I have discovered that it is not always necessary to change the engine due to a cylinder head crack. Even a really bad one.

I am driving a 1990 760 with the 6 cylinder 2.4 turbo diesel. It has had oil and water mix since I bought it. I have covered around 20k miles with no problems. I used a product made by Holts called chemi weld in NZ/Aus and Wondaweld in the UK.

I have heard loads of people complain about this type of product but I have yet to experience a failure of any other component when using it exactly as described. Sounds like a sales pitch so I apologise.

I have used this 'quick fix' on trucks and cars. Petrol and diesel.

It is important to drain and flush a cold engine via the hoses and not just the radiator. Then it is important to run the engine up as described and for the minimum amount of time stated. Also you may need to administer two bottles. From memory it is three litre engine capacity per bottle. The ONLY change I make is that I do not drain the cooling system after the product has been administered. Then I wait until the next 6 or 10k service and do it then.

Meanwhile, my volvo (in the UK) and 1988 BMW 735i (in Sydney) are both running fine and both have cracked heads.

Cheers,

Lloyd

i would also second what lloyd says, try some of that, it might fix it, and if it does it will get your a few more miles till you decide.

personally i think changing the head would be the best rather than lifting out every bit that needs to be changed. unless you are going to take the time to re-condition the new engine of course ...

Matt

Hey Guys

well i started dismantling it and had a change ogf heart so began putting it all back together now i diosconnected the starter motor foolishly of me i wasnt thinking only to now discover after hooking it all back up all i get wen i hit the key is click click click

no turning over any more :(

have i killed it


sorry to be a pest i did get some chemiweld to try : so heres hoping

is getting it to turn over again a simple fix

Regards

Dale.

i also noticed after draining the old engine oil its not as white as oil / water usually gets its still very oil colored does that mean that the issue may not be so bad afterall

jsut another thing i thought to mention

Dale.

UPDATE!!!

Hey guys its ok got it to start turns out was a slight boo boo on my behalf

i found out after reading my haynes guide that the starter for some reason actually has 2 thick red leads going too it one really thick one and another about the thickness off car amp power cable by the looks of the wiring diagram the thinner one also chains thru the alternator as well as the starter got me beat why but any how i discovered the really thick red one tucked back in under the car near the Transmission

hooked it all up hit the key and away she went turned over beautifullly


ill keep you posted how the chemiweld goes im going to try it after lunch

Regards

Dale.

UPDATE!!!!

ok finally got it to start

now acording to the directions for chemiweld you have to leave the expansion tank cap off or radiator cap if fitted

i cant

when the car is started it litterlly charfs water OUT of the expansion tank like old faithful

LOL

what could cause that

Regards

Dale.

UPDATE!!!

you guys will be getting sick of me soon but im getting sick of this problem LOL

ok finally got the chemiweld in if i open the cap and let the pressure out whilst idleing it will eventually stop fizzing out of the tank

but it still seams to be creating alot of pressure inside i can hear it seeping out when i turn the car off like a sssssssssssss sound coming from expansion tank

also the cars temp guage seams to be all over the place one min its approahing H next min its back down to normal then its back in the middle and all thais happens pretty frequenetly ESP when i turn the car alot could it be shorting wire? but i cant imagine so as the temp sensor was recently cut out of the p[lug and wired in seperately with a good looking wire i wonder but i remember one saying i read in a haynes book

"Never Take Anything For Granted"

ill suss out the plug

Dale.