Author Topic: white smoke coolant boiling (Read 4940 times)

bmoore · « **on:** October 29, 2006, 04:34:30 pm »

I just bought this 95 golf 1.9td. I bought it knowing that the head gasket was blown. Apparently the motor was rebuilt about a year ago. So I put a new head gasket in it without any major problems. It starts great runs good, the only thing is that there is white smoke and the coolant keeps boiling out of the resevoir. I know this points to a bad gasket but there is no oil in the coolant or coolant in the oil. I seam to really notice the smoke when i have come to a stop for a minute or two. The temperature gauge stays right in the middle. When the head was off I did notice a lot of cracks in the head coming from around where there is a plug under the glow plug.
Some other info that might help is that the turbo might not be working very good as i do not hear it, the fan stays on when the car is turned off ( for hours) , I torqued the cylinder head bolts to bently specs, I put a used resevoir cap on, the cylinder head was straight within .001" . When I let it cool down and open the resevoir there is pressure, I always thought that if the head gasket was gone the cooling system would not hold pressure with the motor off.
Will the cracks let coolant into the motor. Where can I get a cylinder head without a core. Has anyone ever welded the cracks with success.

Thanks in advance Bill

jtanguay · « **Reply #1 on:** October 29, 2006, 04:44:35 pm »

if i were you, i would check the coolant level with a digital thermometer.. maybe your temp gauge is lying to you... once you figure out of its good/bad then you can move on to different things. the fan afterrun switch will stay on when the head is hot. so i'd pretty much guess that your head is really hot, or the temp sender is bad.

bmoore · « **Reply #2 on:** October 29, 2006, 04:48:31 pm »

I should also add that I did a oil change, topped it up to the max level and after a 60km trip to work the level was 3/8" over the max level

bmoore · « **Reply #3 on:** October 29, 2006, 04:54:40 pm »

is the fan controlled by a different switch when the motor is shut off or running i am pretty sure that the switch is n.f.g because if the motor is dead cold the fan will run just dont know if it is the thermoswitch on the drivers side of the rad or if it has a after run switch separetly

jtanguay · « **Reply #4 on:** October 30, 2006, 04:37:55 am »

yea the afterrun switch is on the head... thats probably faulty...

i've had the same exact problem you are describing. my oil level would rise... turns out it was my oil cooler (it had a leak) changed that, and no more oil level rising

but if you have a lot of cracks in the head, it might be possible that your problem is much more severe than mine

www.steelseal.com makes a coolant leak fix... check out their video on their website... pretty neat

** i am not trying to endorse them **