very very sick vento vr6 reaaly need help (beg beg grovel)

[vento-rob 0]

Hello all you lovely veedubbers

i am in need of some advise, please bare with the jackanory story but its a bit hard to describe on a forum.

When we had the snow afew weeks ago and the real bad cold weather i left the vento sitting unused as i couldnt drive at this point.I went to use my car a couple of days later and headed of to work as normal,

I got about 20mins down the road and noticed the oil temp getting really hot (around 130 degrees) so i pulled into a garage to allow her to cool down,

whilst doing so just out of interest felt my rad and noticed it was stone cold,

so thought bugger she has no antifreeze in her and has frozen solid,

so ask the garage dude to lend me several kettles of boiling hot water to try and thor out the rad,

I started the car up and felt hot water coming through the top rad as normal so thought great left it for a bit and it got a little hotter and further along the top so decided to carry on at a slow pace to work.

any who i checked the oil temp again on the mfa (display) and it was reading 160 also noticed plumes of white/bluey somke were comng from the exhaust of the car when backing off the gas,

so pulled over and it just died with the clutch depressed and wouldnt start again,

I left it for a bit and turned her over, she started but ran proper rough, needless to say i switched her back off and got recovered home by the rac.

thursday i hooked up a jump pack to start her up and noticed a few odd problems as follows

1, wouldnt start first time on the key (really struggled) tried to fire but just seem to miss out

2, Just before it fired up it back fired loud bang then run ticking over not to bad

3, (this should be 2 but hey) when it did start it shot a load of water out the coolant tank (cap was off)

4, when trying to turn over orginally there seemed to be smoke/steam vapour coming from the header tank??? (which really is baffeling me)

5, took it of the drive to turne it around for ease of working on her and she ran like a bag of schite. missfiring and alsorts.

i know this has been long winded and i appriciate your time in reading my problem.

i personally think the head gasket has gone bye bye but will conduct a comp test over the weekend, does anyone else think this could be the case,

the oil is burnt to buggery and stinks to high heaven as it got so hot so i know this needs changing.

any views or advise please chaps and chappetts.

Cheers

Rob

[Cuske 0]

My guess would be your radiator was cold because it had no water in, probably the freeze split a pipe somewhere. And now you've cooked it, deffo head gasket.

[rodney 17]

ok so here is a list to look at..... lets start with basics and assume the sensor is working and accurate

• Due to the heat etc all plugs need re gapping as a minimum as the heat kill this and plugs.

• whilst the plugs are out. they should be that nice colour. Please confirm if they are brown or exceptionally white. As it has been running like a bag of spanners there should be a carbon build up but wipe that off and look below this. (take your time here)

• check the Dizzy/coilpack is not showing anything obvious ion the way of heat dammage. Plugs and leads do not like this level of heat in some instances.

• Pop the thermostat off and drop in to a jug of boiling water. if it is activating then all is good with that

• right on to the Scooby end of the stick. Check the oil cap and pop your finger down the hole. you are looking for the scrambled egg effect. Any white substance!

• Go to a garage/phone a friend. They have a sniffer device which is popped in to the coolant expansion tank. (once the engine is running), iit is sniffing for gasses which shouldnt be there. I.e breach in gaskets or water jacket.

Let us know what you find as you go and we'll give you a pointer to the next steps.. Don't panic yet. for example if the thermostat is broken then you may have just used all the fluids up...

Obviously you have oil changes etc to do but lets look at the other things first

[rodney 17]

oh and a final thing. if you do run the car don't run for too long as you can appreciate. Plan for worst hope for best..

[cabrioman 6]

as mr RCF said do the basics but i think u my have fobared the head gasket and possible more major damage ...sorry

[vento-rob 0]

Thanks chaps for the info, im planning for the worse but going to try all the little things first i.e new plugs oil and filter change, will try and get a sniffe test done if i can find someone with one lol