88 Loyale, head gasket?

[Fokz]

I recently picked up an 88 Loyale GL non turbo. It was running great the first few days, then we had a few really warm days and the temperature guage began rising. One day it rose really fast and by the time I pulled over, I opened my hood and the coolant was boiling in the reservoir.

 

I replaced the thermostat, cap, and picked up another rad/fan. When I went to replace the rad, I investigated the current electric fan, and realized it was connected to a switch in the interior that I must turn on myself :-\

 

After turning on the fan (low and behold) it quit overheating.

 

Now I have noticed that on cold starts, the oil pressure is quite high (3/4 of the meter) and if I try to drive right away, the engine sorta of lugs around 2000 rpm, after driving a bit, the meter goes back to the center position and no more lugging. But when I'm idling, the oil pressure gauge drops close to the bottom of the gauge.

 

Now, I thought maybe the oil was just really really old, or maybe it got broken down when the engine overheated. So I changed my oil. When I drained the oil, it was kind of light brown (sort of chocolate milky, coolant?) but on my hands still felt very oily and was black. Two days after I checked the oil on my dipstick and it was still at the same level as I filled it and looked very clean.

 

If there was coolant getting in to the oil, how long should it take before it turns in to chocolate milk again? And do these symptoms sound like a bad head gasket?

 

Opinions will be greatly appreciated, I'm a student and work nearly full-time, I don't have much money/time, so any possible alternatives would be helpful too

[Turbone]

Your on your way to a HG replacement job.

Sooner or later (maybe sooner) its going to fail completely.

The oil pressure is consistant with all EA engines.

At idle it will drop to zero, even mentions this in the owners manual.

[Andy FitzGibbon]

There's no such thing as an '88 Loyale (they didn't come out with that model designation until '90). It's either a GL, GL10, or DL.

Oil pressure dropping to zero at idle is normal- the owner's manual speaks about it. It's because these engines rely more on oil volume than oil pressure to lubricate themselves.

Doesn't really sound like a HG to me, usually with a bad HG the car will run fine when it's cold and then start to run crappy when the thermostat opens. The chocolate milk oil could have been caused by the previous owner driving lots of short trips and/or not changing the oil very often (condensation buildup in the crankcase from the engine not getting hot enough to burn any moisture out).

The lugging when the engine is cold sounds like just that, the engine is cold. One of the engine control sensors may not be entirely up to snuff, giving the ECU false readings until the engine is warm. Is the check engine light on?

You should do a compression test, that will help determine if your problem is HG related or not.

Good luck,

Andy

[coupe]

If the head is only leeking from the waterjacket to the out side of the head like mine was then you will get a increase in temp, but the motor will run ok. usualy when your head leeks the other way into the oil gallery you get white oily mayonaise looking emulsion.

People will poo poo the idea, but a product called "Metalic seal up" will solve it untill you can do the head gasket. this product wont leave massive amounts of gunk in the radiator and motor like alot of other products.

There is no subitute for a HG change though.

Cheers Pete

[robm]

I would be more worried about what your coolant was doing, rather than your oil. A blown head gasket can leak between water and oil, from cylinder pressure to water jacket, or from water, oil, or cylinder pressure to the outside. In my experience, they rarely exhibit more than one of these problems at a time - unless it is REALLY blown, and then you wouldn't be in any doubt. Since yours overheated and spewed coolant all over, and hasn't shown any further tendency to milkshake the oil, I would be most worried about cylinder pressure to water jacket. If it starts to overheat and bubble coolant out of the overflow, then your head gaskets are probably shot. Check your coolant for bubbles, or try one of those kits for finding exhaust gases in coolant.

 

If it hasn't overheated since you found out how to turn on the fan, you might have gotten very lucky...

 

Good luck.