Rep Power: 0

My car overheated recently and I think I may have done something to the head gasket because of it. It almost looks like someone used blue devil to seal the gasket before and I’m having a lot of coolant loss

I plan on buying a compression tester to confirm my suspicions

i pretty much lose all of my coolant within a few days but when I top it up and run the car to operating temps i can’t see any leaks from the radiator or hoses or anything.

I decided to run the engine and spray around where the head gasket is and I immediately heard it sucking in water through the gasket and heard the engine bot for a second so I stopped. It seemed to suck in water closer to the fuel rail and injectors.

I have literally no idea what’s exactly going on because the car still runs but idles like 1000-17000 and starts sounding like an animal having an orgasm where it jumps up to 1700 and then immediately drops back down really quickly to 1000. It does this over and over again and then goes away for a bit if I quickly turn the car off and turn it back on again.

it almost sounds like it has a turbo with a blow off valve when I push the clutch in and let off the gas.

im not getting any codes other than IACV and I took my IAC and throttle body fully out just a couple days ago and cleaned the absolute hell out of them both with throttle body cleaner and sensor cleaner. It actually almost seems to run worse now after. A couple times recently I’ve been spewing smoke or steam out the engine bay when I’m driving and it smells like it’s just burning the coolant.

sometimes there is smoke or vapour (can’t tell what it is) coming out the radiator cap along with some big bubbles and little bubbles.

i don’t understand why the problems are only at random and only when the car is fully heated up. When the car is cold it literally runs better and doesn’t even have the idling problem just idles a little high.

that’s all the information I currently have figured out or know and I hope someone on here can point me in the right direction to find out what’s going on with it.

 
Rep Power: 367

use this test instead of buying a test kit


information (this is for 7th gen cars, but applies to 6th gen)
https://www.civicforums.com/forums/3...reference.html

 
Rep Power: 222

If someone used blue devil the engine is junk anyways

 
Rep Power: 0

yeah I wish I had of known what blue devil was when I was buying the thing, thought the blue stuff was just what they used to seal the head gasket to the head.

I don’t got much money I wish I could just pull the engine and throw the proper engine in it not a mf d series, also didn’t know that the d series kinda sucked. I’d love to put a b series in it.

 
Rep Power: 0

Turns out I’m very dumb. I don’t have much mechanical experience and I was thinking my valve cover was my cylinder head. After seeing what a head looks like I feel very dumb for not knowing.

Anyways I thought my head was leaking from a water spray bottle test but it’s the valve cover gasket. Sprayed water on it the Seam where the gasket is and it sucks in water. I’m not leaking oil but it seems to suck in air from the gasket.

Would a valve cover with a vacuum leak cause sporadic idling issues and the engine hesitation that I’m getting? And also the weird sound of depressurizing as if I almost had a turbo when I let off the gas and put the clutch in?


What I don’t understand is why my coolant is burning but no visible leaks from the radiator or hoses

 
Rep Power: 222

Could try replacing the valve cover gasket, I would check the intake manifold and throttle body for leaks

 
Rep Power: 0

i think I’ll try that, I took the throttle body off entirely to clean it and the iacv and noticed the gasket for the throttle body doesn’t look the best shape so I’ll try and get a gasket for that too.
Does the intake manifold have a gasket aswell? I noticed when I shine a flashlight in there when I had the TB off it was really black in there looked caked on.

 
Rep Power: 222

There's a gasket between the throttle body and the intake manifold and then between manifold and the head

 
Rep Power: 0

alright I’ll take that intake manifold off and Check that gasket too and probably clean the inside of the intake manifold because it’s straight black inside there