head gasket ???

Hi there
            i noticed a problem when checking my collant level !!! i saw in there a slight oil scum ontop of the water so i flushed out completely and changed the coolant and topped her back up !!

left the cap off and left her running to watch the coolant return to the expansion tank which it did but with very small beads of oil and white foam then after idling for 10 min when it was upto temp she just boiled over  

anyone with any ideas or is it head off time

cheers martyn

Martyn, best bet would be to pop into your local MOT station and ask them to stick the exhaust probe into the coolant reservoir (NOT IN THE WATER) and this will tell if there are any exhaust gases in the tank. If so, head gasket time

cheers

One thought if you do not think it is the head gasket. Do you have an oil/air cooler or an oil/water cooler? (If you have a seperate oil cooler-radiator to the left of the water rad with pipes leading to the oil filter housing then it is oil/air).  
Similar thing happened to me with a Mazda which had an oil/water cooler. That turned out to be oil/water mixing in the cooler due to the water passages rusting……Much easier to solve that the head gasket.  

Hi there thanks for the comments and help got C&R in nottingham to check it out and your right mikeo it was the oil cooler which was causing the problem   all sorted now thanks for your help guys

oil cooler is a pain in the bum gives all the symptons of a head gasket faliure ive had this before