Vauxhall Corsa Headgasket:

[MrMessy]

My daughter as been told her head gasket is going on her Corsa. There is emulsioned oil in the cam cover and on the dipstick tube. She does a lot of really short runs and the engine does not get chance to warm up. I thought this could be the cause. The car seems to be running fine. Is there a way of checking, ie pressure testing the cooling system? If it has gone how do I check the head is not cracked?

[fizzwheel]

Lots of short runs will do that to the oil.

However... what age Corsa is it, I had two Nova's which is basically the same motor ( I think ) as the first generation Corsa's. Nova Number one went through two head gaskets in the time I had it, Nova Number two went through 4. I think its a pretty common thing on that series engine.

I did drive them hard, but the heads never cracked. The way I knew that it was gone was that the plugs would get wet overnight, when I used to star the car in the morning it would miss and splutter till it was warmed up it was quite apparent that it wasnt running properly. its pretty obvious whats going on.

if it was me I'd take it on a long run and get it properly hot and then go from there. I think a compression test is the only real way you can be sure though I think.

Best thing to do is give it a oil change. Keep an eye on the radiator water also. Like fizz's post i had a nova and the heads never went. However i did have a deisel astra and the head went twice on that~! the only way the emulsion could be caused if the head had gone is the obvoius of water leaking into the oil....Do you maintain water? If so the head cant be gone...? not unles you have oil in the water. So check either of these to pout your mind at rest

Ditto to all that was said above - also check the water reservoir for the smell of exhaust fumes, and check what's coming out of the exhaust at the other end too - once the car's been running for a while (take it for a 15-20 min drive so the engine's up to temp') if there's still a lot of white smoke/steam coming out of the exhaust then that could be a good sign the gasket has gone. I had a 1.6 petrol Astra last year & the head gasket went twice in the space of 6 months

Originally Posted by MrMessy

My daughter as been told her head gasket is going on her Corsa. There is emulsioned oil in the cam cover and on the dipstick tube. She does a lot of really short runs and the engine does not get chance to warm up. I thought this could be the cause. The car seems to be running fine. Is there a way of checking, ie pressure testing the cooling system? If it has gone how do I check the head is not cracked?

Short runs will do the emulsion thing. If its that scrape off the goo you can see and go give it a long hard run. If it the emulsion dosent come back "jobs a good un"

Also it could be thermostat stuck open so never giving the engine a chance to warm up. Does the heater get hot?

As far as testing the cooling system goes a decent garage can

1. Pressure test the cooling system to check for leaks
2. Sniff the coolant for combustion products which shows a head gasket leak

Finally, if you want to do a compression test, I've got the gear if you want to borrow it

Tris

Originally Posted by MrMessy

My daughter as been told her head gasket is going on her Corsa. There is emulsioned oil in the cam cover and on the dipstick tube. She does a lot of really short runs and the engine does not get chance to warm up. I thought this could be the cause. The car seems to be running fine. Is there a way of checking, ie pressure testing the cooling system? If it has gone how do I check the head is not cracked?

What engine? Depending on what engine depends how easy the job is.

If its a 16v lump and the head gasket has gone (u'll know, it'll wet itself), then the head will need to be skimmed. A garage, your looking at £200-£300 inc skimming.

If its an 8v engine, then its really something you can do at home. Or at the very worse, buy a whole other engine for about £50 (1.2 8v, 1.4 8v) and just swap the whole thing over

This is presuming its a corsa B. Corsa C will be roughly the same but without the 8v engines.