Tales from a grumpy imigrant part 2

[suityou01]

Cracked block.

Dino, shush!

[doodab]

So if a car was running on 3 out of 4 cyclinders, blowing bubbles in the coolant and chucking steam out the back what other possible failures would you diagnose then Mr Troll sir?

some idiot contractor had filled the cooling system up with champers instead of antifreeze?

[suityou01]

some idiot contractor had filled the cooling system up with champers instead of antifreeze?

So long as you don't use the cheap stuff it's perfectly fine

[doodab]

So long as you don't use the cheap stuff it's perfectly fine

Clearly.

[DimPrawn]

All this excitement about bloke crosses channel and car breaks down.

[Troll]

Not really. While revving the engine you can see the bubbles forming in the coolant if you remove the filler cap. The steam coming out of the exhaust was also a faint clue. If there were really good they could fit a device on the filler cap that checks for the presence of hydrocarbons in the emitted steam (I have seen this done).

So if a car was running on 3 out of 4 cyclinders, blowing bubbles in the coolant and chucking steam out the back what other possible failures would you diagnose then Mr Troll sir?

Bubbles in your coolant is a bit of a give away usually you can see it in the expansion vessel and the only place it can come from is the combustion chamber so we are talking head or block with head being the most likely suspect
Steam out of the exhaust confirms that water is getting into the combustion chamber - since you haven't suffered a hydraulic lock ( or you could have already causing damage to the valves on the cylinder not working) I suspect the crack to be in the head between the inlet & outlet port on whatever cylinder is not working
You may be extremely lucky and only suffered a blown gasket - but you cannot say for sure until you lift the head & I don't believe luck is one of your strong points the only reason I can think of a gasket blowing is the head bolts loosening or the head warping due to running with no coolant -which again means you're fooked

BTW if you have been blowing steam out of the exhaust you most likely will have taken the lambda sensors out (not sure if the cat will also be affected) due to the sensors not taking kindly to being sprayed with antifreeze
HAOTH


Where should I address the invoice?

[doodab]

The risk is that he'll take the head off, tell you it's ****ed and will cost €1500 to fix, and then give you a €500 bill for taking the ****er apart. He'll then keep your car.

Seriously, get a bicycle. You can fix it yourself.

[Troll]

The risk is that he'll take the head off, tell you it's ****ed and will cost €1500 to fix, and then give you a €500 bill for taking the ****er apart. He'll then keep your car.

Seriously, get a bicycle. You can fix it yourself.

very true

[DimPrawn]

Overheated engine usually means:

Blown gasket
Warped head
Stretched cylinder head bolts

So that's a machine shop job on the head, new bolts and gaskets, coolant and sundries.

Bill is going to get expensive.

A 1997 318i can be had for £900.

Why bother repairing this one?

[eek]

Why bother repairing this one?

Its Suity!!! What do you think?