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Hi everyone, time for a diagnosis.
L series soob with EA82T with 160k- not driven hard.
Always used a bit of coolant but using more lately, little more tail pipe steam than usual.
Seems to miss fire slightly when idling- especially when cold (can feel it rather than hear it).
NOT overheating.
Steve from rising sun couldnt detect any cylinder gases in the radiator when issue first showed up a month or so ago- but worse since then.
Here is the kicker, Heads and head gaskets redone aprox 20,000k ago.

What is wrong????
Have one of the head gaskets gone?

Maybe the head bolts have come loose, yes it is possible i have seen it more than once, other than that you could check the small hose under the front of the manifold or the hoses from the water pump.

if you run anti freeze and the steam has a distinct anti freeze taste about it - coolant is getting into the combustion equation ain't it ? so why no gases detected in radiator test ? inlet manifold gaskets seeping into combustion ? but heads were done ?? you'd think the inlet gaskets'd be fine

Inlet manifold gaskets leaking?

I obviously have a few things to check out but keep the ideas coming,

Would a manifold gasket leak really cause excessive steam in the zorst?
Jono being only a newbie compared to your fine tastes i have no idea what antifreeze tastes like. I am running green nulon coolant which i think has antifreeze. Can you describe what i am tasting for?

The inlet manifold has coolant running through it as well as air and the water passages in the heads are next to the inlet ports

Just went for a drive up and down the street after the car had been warming up for 10min. When i had to do a u turn the car felt like it was missing a cylinder- very lethargic. Then all 4 running again.

Manifolds tight.

Julian

Pretty much resigned myself to the fact that the heads have gotta come off.
Ive never even pulled a EA motor out before, and the only head I've taken off before was on a P.O.S. car with 46hp!

So I see three paths that i could follow
1. Save for a few weeks and just get it done by pros ($$$$$$$$$$$$)
2. Invest in some chemiweld or other such product (anyone used this before??)
3. Organise a weekend shin-dig with fellow Adelaideans to help me do this job, after which I shout 400 bucks worth of pork ribs and Pale Ale (no kidding!)

Your 3rd option sounds as though it may just work, but it still sounds like a head or inlet manifold gasket.

Check the inside of the Oil filler cap after the engine has cooled O/nite and see if there are any droplets of water/moisture in there, if so then the head gasket is leaking.

I was taught that trick by an excellent mechanic in Townsville.

I will try that peter, but isnt water only evident in the oil if the gasket is leaking in such a manner? In some circumstances cant the gasket leak water ONLY to the combustion chamber?

Am I going to get the head gaskets done for under a grand?

sorry to hear of your troubles, don't suppose you'll be getting that IC in till this is fixed. I have pulled engines and done heads more times than I'd like to remember, so I may be of assistance (esp with Pales on offer.....)
I'd suggest you get in touch with Steve again before you get too far in. No point disturbing heads unneccessarily.
as said above, it may be a leak coming in from the intake manifold gasket. a leak from the head gasket usually comes with exhaust gases into the coolant, (which didn't show up) and overheating. do you have coolant being pushed out the overflow that doesn't go back?
milky deposit on the oil cap is a classic sign of cross contamination, indicating gasket failure. Pull your plugs and look for moisture?
ps i'm really sus on putting chemiweld type products into anywhere. fix it properly and you won't have a niggling worry in the back of you're mind next time your the other side of Coomandook (last place I broke down with same problem)

Sounds like a bit of a bugger, but are you mainly experiencing performance issues? It will be interesting to see what others think but in my experience with head gaskets is that the performance doesn't seem to suffer other than a bit of misfiring at start-up, but once that clears the motor seems to go as strong as ever. Perhaps just check a couple of things spark related such as for condensation under the distributor cap, and the actual spark intensity itself (pull off a plug lead and hold it near somthing metal on the block and make sure there's good spark there). How are the tappets going, if they are noisy this fools the knock sensor into thinking there's detonation happening and it retards the timing and this will cause a significant reduction in performance.

thats the same thing that happened with my car before the owner got the shits with it. he spent 3k doing them and they let go 6 months later. quick thing you can do it shine a light into the bore via the sparkplug hole. that will show up a leak easily.

Well i will have a check for spark health, dizzy cap condition etc and have a look down the spark hole and report back.
There is significantly more steam than there used to be (not exactly water dripping out of the pipe though) from the rear, and misfiring is not restricted to the warm up, but occasionally cuts in when warm and then the car feels like a lawnmower.
If it werent for these factors i wouldnt know there was a problem, car drives just as beautifully as it ever did.
Other than this there is no oil/water cross contamination and it runs beautifully cool under all conditions.

Re coolant steam taste. We can all sort of guess that from the smell of your own piss (steaming or otherwise) that you could imagine what it would taste like without actually tasting it. TRUE ? well it is abit like that when sticking your nose into the steam coming out the exhaust.

Yep inlet manifold gasket on my original GLAT motor looked really falling to bits and possibly leaking into cylinder causing the problems to begin (b4 i buyed it )

Looks like i may have (FINALLY!!!) nailed the problem, here is the story.

Retorqued heads, still blowing clouds of steam and getting worse.
Still no evidence of combustion gases in radiator.
Pressure tested cooling system, pumped up to 14PSI and by the end of the day was holding at 8PSI. Then removed injectors in anticipation of imminent manifold removal, and inspection down the hole revealed moisture was evident at one side.
Manifold off, looked like a bit of cross contamination occuring between air and cooling passages, not much but then again there doesnt need to be. On inspection the port below the suspect part of gasket showed a dull golden colour whereas the others were a nice shining alloy appearance. Manifold off to get pressure tested and refaced. Heads were smooth and straight (<1thou out) so just cleaned superficially.

Bolt holes tapped etc. Reassembled with new gaskets and ancillaries replaced. Flushed and refilled cooling system with the good stuff.
Started up and small amount of steam evident that stopped about 1 min after (i think this was due to residual water left in exhaust). Irregular misfire had us stumped but was found to be a loose/dirty injector connector. Now holds 14PSI in cooling system all weekend (negligible drop- i reckon due to test equiptment).

I am sorry about the long reply but i hope it goes someway to repaying the people that offered advice.
Only time will tell if i got it right.

its good to hear u have finally sorted the problem..hopefully... dave

yeah, one of my heads had that dirty water trail down otherwise clean ports. if the previous owner/mechanic fixed that there'd be no melted timing covers, glazed bores, cracked heads. Sounds like you have saved yourself further troubles down the track. well done