White Smoke!

Hi all,

just when things were going so well that I'd altogether stopped worrying about that sort of thing, my 1500GLD started smoking white after a long hill on the motorway. I stopped and popped the bonnet - predictably enough there was a fair amount of pressure in the expansion tank and a bit of blowoff. A quick wire across the fan switch revealed a non-working fan, so I reckon I've cooked the head gasked (a little singed, at least)

The dash voltage regulator died a while back, so temp and fuel readings are very unreliable - my fault, I should have fixed the dash weeks ago.

I left the car at a friendly garage and took a taxi home, so I'll have to pick it up next week.

I've got all the gaskets and a new waterpump to go on, I'll get a new thermoswitch for the radiator and check the fan. There was no real drop in coolant level and the engine clearly didn't overheat or lose oil, etc. Also it was running cleanly with no strange noises, etc.

My question is simple: Is there anything else I should do at the same time, or I should check?
My intention is to whip off the head, clean up and check everything, fit a new gasket, waterpump, etc, and re-assemble.

Any thoughts?

Robin

Check the head for flatness

Ali heads can when get to hot warp the mating surface, it could need a skim.

OK, great. Do I need a thicker head gasket if it needs a skim?

Robin

Not sure about the 1.5s but the early 1.6s Diesels had a habit of cracking between the valve seats and could get bad enough to lead to over heating (or poss over heating leads to the cracked head????) Hope its just the head gasket for you.

OK,I'll check for cracking too.

The good side is that almost all Golfs over here are diesels, so there's no lack of spare engines - I've even got one or two at the back of my garage if needed.

Robin

No the gasket stays the say.

The gasket thickness is measure on how much the pistons protrude the top of the block

Almost every diesel head I've had or seen has a crack between the valves, it doesn't affect things is the pressure test comes back fine, plus if you skim the head then the valves will get re seated take you away from the crack.