So, I broke it..

Soldato
Joined
7 Nov 2002
Posts
12,613
Location
Snorbans, UK
After buying a mk3 Mondeo for just over a grand, I figured that it'd be nice and reliable, covering about 500 miles a week.

However, after a suspected headgasket failure earlier this week, I was greeted with this:

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Typical signs of failure, oil and water mixed all over the shop. A lot of the mess was due to one of the water bungs shearing and leaving a hole in the head:

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As it turns out, the headgasket hadn't gone, it was just this hole causing the oil and water to fix - it also hydrolocked cylinders 2 and 3.

The bottom pulley came off, and this happened:

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Then this was revealed when the side cover came off:

20120212_135509.jpg


It's all draining out now, its all going to be scrubbed off and de-greaser applied to get rid of all that crap. Run cheap oil for 500 miles or so, then another oil change and put decent oil in

:D
 
LOL that last pic is amazing! :)

Cooling system must surely be in a similar state - what are you going to do about that? I had great success cleaning mine out after an oil cooler (water cooled) failure on my omega by filling the cooling system with water soluble degreaser and giving it a run. Many flushes later everything was spotless. :)
 
LOL that last pic is amazing! :)

Cooling system must surely be in a similar state - what are you going to do about that? I had great success cleaning mine out after an oil cooler (water cooled) failure on my omega by filling the cooling system with water soluble degreaser and giving it a run. Many flushes later everything was spotless. :)


I imagine that's similar to what I'd to - at the least flush the system through. I'd probably just pop on the old thermostat housing (which is empty - I can't just remove the thermostat as it's moulded into the housing) and flush it through.
 
I imagine that's similar to what I'd to - at the least flush the system through. I'd probably just pop on the old thermostat housing (which is empty - I can't just remove the thermostat as it's moulded into the housing) and flush it through.

My experience was even after thorough 'normal' flushing with water and stuff like radflush, etc, that hoses were still all lined with mayo, so god knows what the rad/heater matrix, etc were like. Even after water flushes were running clear, the amount of gunk that came out after a nice run up to temp with a system full of water sol degreaser (jizer i think it might have been) was amazing. After that insides of hoses, etc were squeaky clean. Became known as the 'Pope method' in Omega forum land (that oil cooler failing and how to clean up afterwards is a common problem) :)
 
I'd whip the head off first and check the hydrolocked cylinders aren't damaged, chances are the rods may be bent. No point wasting time and money on cleaning it all out if the engine's lunched.
 
I'd whip the head off first and check the hydrolocked cylinders aren't damaged, chances are the rods may be bent. No point wasting time and money on cleaning it all out if the engine's lunched.

The head's off, the cylinders seem to be fine - however I'm going to turn the engine over by hand before re-assembly (after the clean up :o) to check that everything's ok.

The engine needs a new head, the surrounding material fractured and came away, there's no way to repair it (not that I'd want to). I've sourced a new head for £150 (removed for me :D), got it sat in the garage ready to go :)
 
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