Headgasket failure?

[Enfield]

Hi there.

Whilst fitting an air filter to my friends Citroen Saxo 1.1 SX (single point injection), I couldn't help but notice a lot of gunky rubbish in the throttle body! It was yellow/white and lots of it.

I also noticed the same stuff in the oil breather pipe - it was completely gunked up with the stuff. So I checked the oil filler cap that that was fine and no sign of any other gunk from looking down the hole there.

Now I forgot to check the dipstick and coolant, but a conversation about it last night and another thread has prompted me to make this one.

He says the heater takes ages to warm up, but doesn't believe it's the head gasket but I think it is.

It also hunts a little bit too.

Could this be a headgasket failure? He said he drove through a Ford the other day but I can't see how water would get into the throttle body and oil breather pipe.

Next time I'll see him I'll check the coolant and temperature, but is there anything else to check?

Ta

 

[timbob]

My old 1.1 Fiesta (carb, admittedly) had a similar problem.

The top of the carb would gunk up with yellowy gunky mayo type goo, and the car would run horribly. Every other day, I'd have to stop, open the bonnet, get a wodge of kitchen roll and scoop the crud out the carb in order for it to run again. Whilst it was gunked, it would run lumpily, hunt around and splutter at idle.

All it was, was a gunked up oil breather pipe causing the blockage - which the saxo seems to have. Got them cleaned out for a tenner down the local indy garage, and it ran faultlessly again.

So it might not be HGF.....

 

[Sputnik II]

There's really only 3 things to look at -

1. check the coolant level and the temperature gauge for normal running temperature.
2. Check the oil is not a grey slime
3. check the compression of the engine.

If they are all ok then the headgasket should be fine. If the temperature is cooler than it should be you might have a thermostat thats stuck open.
That 'mayonaise' that your on about is usually to do with crankcase breather/recirculating system.