Ea81 Bad Headgasket?

[BobBrumby]

I have been suspect of my cooling system ever since I bought my brumby 50,000 km ago, its now got 305,000 km on it. It had a leaky radiator and various leaking pipes.

 

I replaced the radiator and cap, coolent lines and thermostat shortly after purchasing. Although I have replaced every single coolent line, except the ones running to the heater core and now have no noticable leaks it still uses a little water. For some reson it does not want to top it self up fully from the resiviour bottle, the bottle will be full and the you check the water in the radiator and you can see row or two.

 

The headgasket seems to have an intermitant leak as I opened it once when hot, slowly be it, and I could see bubles, took it up to our mechanic and he couldnot find any exhuast gasses in the coolent. I have no coolent in oil or visa vera. Went on a camping trip this easter 400km round trip got home and I thought I would check for bubbles and no doubt there were bubbles. On a side note I got 300 miles from that tank which is the most I have ever gotten, usually she gets arround 220miles per tank arround the city.

 

It also has started to run hotter, 1/3 instead of 1/4 whilst driving and while sitting at idle it will creep up to 1/2 but then I normally turn on my accessory fan to bring it back down. Once the water got real low and it got to about 3/4 temp I then relised that and shut her down and left the fan on to cool it.

 

I talked to the previous owner, who is one of my sisters friends, she said she never had done the head gasket so they are likely to be orriginal. Probably not a intake gasket issue as I put on an ea82 manifold with oem gaskets not long ago.

 

I know allot of stuff to read but Is this most probably a Hg issue?

[brat82]

Howdy, I am driving a 82 brat w/280,000 on org. engine. Last year I replaced head gaskets after doing all the other cooling items, thermostat,fan heat switch(in rad.)etc. The thermostats are the worst, as I have had new ones that don't work, so I always do the boil water, thermometer, to test thermo. before I put in car. I was trying to make sure it would run cool so I could get myself and all my rafting gear to the middle fork of the salmon river/idaho/100 wilderness miles float. My car was doing just about the same type of thing that yours is. It was the radiator that was the most crucial/clogged up, my radiator guy says that stop leak products, are his bread and butter, folks use and then he gets to rot out and rebuild. Before I did my HG's, I checked the cyl. comp. psi., just to see what I was dealing with. Spark plug color will tell you something about how the cyls. are fireing. A low reading may signal some sort of leak. Some leaks not into engine cyl., or oil gallerys, just cracks or failed material...I found gasket material stuck in the waterports of the block,kind of like a flapper valve, blocking the opening. One of my heads had pits/corrosion,so I just replaced with one off another engine I have. Cleaned the valve seats(lapped in), and put on new oilseals. I also put all new oilseals in engine, front/rear crank, oil pump rebuild, oil pan gasket. My oil consumpsion is something like I loose a half qt. in 3000 miles. This car still gets over 30mpg. I have 2 other engines for parts, one is siezed/stuck/won't turn, and the other has a huge crack, spews oil, and was still running when I got it,both have really good parts...all I can say is, subbies are great...all above is IMOA...this site rocks!:cool: