Blown Head Gasket?

[SLOSHO89]

My car has been using water recently. It doesn't leak water it just uses it. I checked the oil and it wasn't a milk shake.

Is it possible for the water to leak into the cumbustion chamber and get "burned" out?

I think that it warms up quicker than it did, say a few weeks ago. But it doesn't over heat.

Any ideas?
Efren

 

[projectSHO89]

Is it possible for the water to leak into the cumbustion chamber and get "burned" out?

Sure, it's possible. If it were, your spark plug in the affected cylinder(s) would likely have deposits.

Not as likely as a leak in the radiator or elsewhere that either hits the cats and evaporates or just gets blown back under the car while driving.

Steve

 

[AutoSHO]

Not sure if this is your problem, but our old 93 ATX had a mystery slow coolant leak, and it turned out to be one of the radiator end-tank seals. Never left any residue or puddle until it finally got bad enough to find the leak. We replaced it with a Modine Lifetime warranty radiator and all was well. My last car had a bad head gasket, leaked in the back, just seeped very very slowly out onto the block where it vaporized from not being pressurized. Its possible it is a headgasket, but more likely a radiator.
If it is indeed warming up faster, it could be a head gasket, but they are a relatively rare failure on the SHO unless it gets driven harder when still fairly cold. Good Luck!

 

[rangerj]

SLOSHO89,

Does your exhaust smell like anti-freeze?

Do a compression test if you thing you have a blown head gasket. You have to pull the plugs for the compression test, so look at the plugs for signs of anti-freeze being burned. Look for white crusty deposits on the plugs.

If compression is OK, then use a coolant system tester to pressurize the system and look for the leak. I think Auto Zone will rent you the testers.

By the way my car uses water also, it uses all of it. Does the same thing with the oil, i.e. uses all of it! He he he rangerj

 

[shojuan]

Are all the coolant hoses new? Could be a little trickle out of a bypass hose. If you still have the original rubber crimped to the heater pipes (the short sections of heater hose going to the engine) you could have a slight leak there too. As was mentioned before it could be a slight leak from the radiator tanks. The radiator is hot enough when it's pressurized to evaporate water pretty quick that touches the outside, especially preheated radiator water. Same goes for other parts of the cooling system.

Rick

 

[redftsho]

My 93 ATX every so often has oil spots in the antifreeze tank. I clean them out with a piece of old rag wrapped around a screw driver. Every so often my low coolant light would come on and after gassing it up a hill the check engine light would come on and stay on for a while. I was just wondering if anyone has any ideas what this sounds like? Also, my 93 ATX has 65K on it, and i found a 95 MTX that i really like with 64K on it. Think i should buy it?

 

[SLOSHO89]

Well, It turned out to be a bad upper radiator hose. I couldn't figure it out untill I was cruising through downtown SLO and it started over heating. I could hear the water getting out.

The good thing to all of this was that it steam cleaned my tranny for me so it looks nice and clean thumbs_u

Efren