Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrub
Oops didn't see this until after my last comment. Coolant was fine, but you were right about the head gasket. Thanks!
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Wow. I'm surprised I was right. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrub
Any ideas on how to prevent this kind of thing from happening again?
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The only thing you can really do to prevent head issues is to keep the cooling system in good condition to avoid overheating. Unless you overheated it badly at some point, this just sounds like you were unlucky enough to have an engine with a flaw. It happens. It doesn't sound like it went long enough to cause major damage, so they'll likely be able to fix it and send you on your way.
There are two sets of symptoms that happen when you have a head issue. If it's a combustion leak, hot exhaust gases will spew into the coolant and boil it at that location. You get weird temperature fluctuations and gases trapped in the coolant system. Green coolant will precipitate out this horrible red mud when it boils, and that shit will eat water pumps. I'm not sure how the blue coolant handles boiling. I don't want to find out.
You can confirm you have this type of leak with a combustion leak tester you can get from Amazon for $50. You stick a thing on the radiator filler, and it turns a different color if you have exhaust gas in your cooling system. You can also do a compression test or a leak down test, but that would probably be a lot of fun in this car with the spark plugs on the bottom.
The other result of a head issue is a leak of coolant into the oil. This is the more insidious problem because you don't always know it's happening until you've already done engine damage. Coolant in the oil will eat bearings, usually starting with cam bearings. If you ever notice your oil level
rising between oil changes, that's an indication you have coolant leaking into the oil.
Once upon a time you could detect coolant in your oil by looking at it and seeing a milky appearance, but the detergent packages have gotten so good that you can have a lot of coolant in your oil without seeing any visual difference. The best way to detect smaller leaks is to get into the habit of sending off an oil sample for analysis at a lab at every oil change. I use Blackstone, but there are others. It costs $28, and they send you an oil sample kit for free if you fill out a form on their website. I consider it cheap insurance. Plus it tells you a lot more about how your engine is wearing than just the water content.
Personally, if this were my car, I would send off an oil sample at your next oil change no matter what to make sure the service department got everything sealed back up properly. An oil analysis can also help detect if there was any bearing damage from coolant entering the oil.
In your case it was probably just a combustion leak, and it sounds like you caught it before it turned into major drama. I would just check the oil to be sure.