Blown Headgasket?

[ACE_14]

My car pretty much just sits right now due to a bad trans, but I do start it once a week to keep it running. This morning I went to check all the fluids in it before I started it and I noticed my radiator was low. I started filling it with anti-freeze and as it came to the top, I noticed there was oil in it. This sucks a$$ big time. My oil is still topped off and it doesnt look like it has water in it.

This pretty much means headgasket right? But how could I have oil in the radiator and no water in the oil with oil level full?

Could it be anything else( I doubt it )?

[Civic Accord Honda]

sure its not just old water or gunk thats been in there for years?, try flushing it out.. also do a compression test that will tell you for sure

[MessyHonda]

yeah time to do a radiator flush

[w261w261]

Did you run it long enough to get it hot? Do that, and see if it tries to overflow into the coolant tank. If it does, it means most likely that you have a small leak in the head gasket that is allowing the combustion by-products to pump into a coolant passage, which raises the system pressure beyond the setting of the radiator cap. The cap bypasses (just like it does after the car has been shut off hot, when the coolant goes to the recovery tank), resulting in the coolant flowing into the tank, which might overflow. After things calm down, the coolant, which normally siphons back to the radiator, cannot do so completely because it's partially dumped itself on the ground. So the fluid level in the radiator will be low. If this is what has happened to you, the gasket has failed between the head wall and the water passage. A new head gasket will fix it of course, but I used a bottle of Moroso's head gasket repair in an '85 Volvo and it worked fine for another year until I sold it and lost track.

The thing with the bottle fix is that you have to really flush (REALLY FLUSH) out the cooling system before you add the stuff, because anti-freeze keeps it from working. Just get a hose and jam it into the radiator instead of the hose from the engine. Start the engine - we're talking about a total of at least 20 minutes of flushing, because you'll have to wait until the engine gets hot enough for the thermostat to open (you can tell when it's closed because no water is coming out of the hose from the engine - the one you disconnected). Once the water begins coming out, you'll see that it stops after a bit, because you're putting cold water into the radiator, which is sending it to the engine. The cooler water closes the thermostat, and the flow to the radiator hose temporarily stops. As the engine block gets hot, the thermostat opens and the process begins again. You might have to watch this happen a few times, but be patient because you have to get all of the anti-freeze completely out (you'll see the color of the water coming out of the disconnected hose start to go from, say, green to clear). You also want to flush the driveway well, because anti-freeze is very poisonous to dogs, and it's sweet. So they go for a lick and get sick.

There's bottles of stuff that claim to be able to do this sold on the internet for around $75. Don't bother, you can get the same thing with Moroso, and it's been used by mechanics for years.

http://www.moroso.com/catalog/categorydisplay.asp?catcode=22005

You should refill with distilled water and anti-freeze (Peak is good, because it's dark colored and you can see the level better in our obscure overflow bottles, which, btw, you should take out and clean to make the level-check easier, and keep yourself from overheating and really taking out the gasket via a warped head). Distilled water will keep the rust out much longer because it doesn't have the minerals in tap or well water....and you want to start refilling the radiator during the later part of the flushing process with it, because you want to have distilled in the block when the flushing is over and you're ready to add anti-freeze.

Unless you are going to tackle the block drain, you'll have only the radiator drain to use, so when you're ready to introduce anti-freeze, use it undiluted (100% anti-freeze), as the block has water only in it from your flush. The capacity of the block is about 60% of the total coolant capacity, and you want to get the coolant/water ratio up to 50-50 for optimum freeze and corrosion protection. Reconnect the radiator hose, close the petcock, fill the radiator leaving the cap off, push the heat button on the climate control and put the temperature lever to hot (opens the valve on the coolant supply to the heater core), start the engine and let it get warm enough to open the thermostat (you can tell when this happens by looking down into the radiator, when the liquid starts moving around in there there's circulation coming from the engine, meaning the thermostat is open). Let it circulate and mix, then test the mixture with one of those cheap little float testers from an auto store to see how close you are to a 50-50 (ideal ratio, which is good for -35 deg) mix. It probably will not be good enough the first time. Stop the car, drain the radiator, add more pure anti-freeze, start the car and let it mix again. Test the mixture, and continue until you are good down to -35 deg. Don't forget to bleed the system (see numerous posts here on how to do that). Flush the driveway again.

Start the car with everything hooked up and see if it still wants to regurgitate the coolant while running. If it did it before and doesn't do it now, you're home.