Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
One simple test but not entirely certain if negative is to open the radiator (when the engien is cool). Fill it. Start the car with the cap off. Look in the radiator. If you see bubbles regularly and they do not stop after five or ten minutes it is almost definitely a head gasket.
You can have different kinds of head gasket leaks. Some involve oil, some coolant, some both. Thus, you can have a bad gasket and no loss of oil and no oil in the coolant, but loss of coolant through the exhaust.
If you want to risk ruining your engine, you could try putting bars leak in it. I once got two and a half years out of a bad head gasket using bars leak.
Sometimes pressure testing does not discover a leak. If it is a tiny leak. I had a tiny leak for four years. No one could find it. They used die, pressure everything they could think of. Finally the car overheated and the leak got bigger. That made is discoverable. Even a tiny pinhole will eventually deplete your coolant and you may never see a drop on the ground.
I have a 99 Honda Civic and the past week I've had to refill the coolant twice.
I don't see it leaking on the ground, but yet it's always empty.
If I drive a short distance the temperature gauge is okay, but If I drive about an hour the temperature gauge goes almost into the red and then it comes down quickly. It goes up and down and if I put the heat on it stays down a bit. This will happen throughout the whole ride.
What is going on? Does it sound like the head gasket? internal leak? radiator cap? I want to get an idea before I take it to a mechanic.
Thank you for any advice
Look for steam/water from the exhaust when idling -- and after the engine has warmed up. If you see any, it is probably a leaky head gasket.
Also, do you notice any odd smells after driving? If you are leaking at the water pump seal, any escaping coolant will vaporize before reaching the ground (as it rolls down the hot engine block) and you will not see any ground puddles.
If it is indeed a head gasket breach, Google "Steel Seal."
What I posted previously is the right way to fix it - pull the head, head goes to the machine shop for a skim cut, check out the valves, new valve stem seals, everything goes back together with Honda OEM or good aftermarket like Elring or Fel-Pro gaskets, do the timing belt while you are at it. This is the he-man, correct way to do it, and the head gasket should last through 2 or even 3 timing belt replacements, I think this Honda needs a belt every 60K or so, and is an interference engine so you have to keep up with that, or you can ruin at least most of the valves, probably the head, maybe even a piston or 2, OK?
But, having said that, while I doubt anything like Bars Leaks that you just add to the antifreeze will do any good, and will probably plug up your heater core - K&W makes a "mechaic in a can" product that if you use it right, if the leak is small, *might* fix it and it might stay fixed for several thousand miles. Maybe. If your karma is good.
On any engine with an aluminum head and iron block, the head gasket is subject to wear as the head expands more than the block on each heatup/cooldown cycle. This is the reason you want a high-grade gasket and don't put any sort of sealer on it in these applications.
Having said that - just man up and pull the damn head already...
Bottles are far from a real fix. Many of them create more problems later, but there is no way to get that stuff out once it has gone in. Mitch I know you know.
Yeah, I just did the head gaset on the Scirocco, I have the old gasket hanging on the wall of the garage, the composition material (non -metallic part) of the gasket is torn/gone in just one small place between a coolant passage and the #1 cylinder bore. When it went, it went out suddenly, coolant went into the #1 cylinder causing a huge rooster tail of white steam that didn't go away as the car warmed up, but it ran fine, I didn't take the hint and drove to the gym about 5 miles from home. It started to overheat on the way back home, but I limped it in by running the engine intermittently and coasting a lot (we are out in the sticks).
Anyway - getting to my point - I don't see how any sort of "bottle cure" could possibly fix this. The K&W might be OK for a car you don't plan to run much longer, and Mac you are right, once you put this stuff in and it coats the cooling system, I doubt you can really ever get rid of it short of hot-tanking the parts.
Like I said, and I think Mac is agreeing with this OP - man up and pull the head already!
What I posted previously is the right way to fix it - pull the head, head goes to the machine shop for a skim cut, check out the valves, new valve stem seals, everything goes back together with Honda OEM or good aftermarket like Elring or Fel-Pro gaskets, do the timing belt while you are at it. This is the he-man, correct way to do it, and the head gasket should last through 2 or even 3 timing belt replacements, I think this Honda needs a belt every 60K or so, and is an interference engine so you have to keep up with that, or you can ruin at least most of the valves, probably the head, maybe even a piston or 2, OK?
But, having said that, while I doubt anything like Bars Leaks that you just add to the antifreeze will do any good, and will probably plug up your heater core - K&W makes a "mechaic in a can" product that if you use it right, if the leak is small, *might* fix it and it might stay fixed for several thousand miles. Maybe. If your karma is good.
On any engine with an aluminum head and iron block, the head gasket is subject to wear as the head expands more than the block on each heatup/cooldown cycle. This is the reason you want a high-grade gasket and don't put any sort of sealer on it in these applications.
Having said that - just man up and pull the damn head already...
The right way to fix it is to first diagnose it before you start shotgunning parts at it.
A 4 gas analyzer, combustion leak tester or a borescope will do the trick. Any good shop will have all three.
The right way to fix it is to first diagnose it before you start shotgunning parts at it.
Quite true. I'm assuming that it is a head gasket, most of the symptoms are there, but you are 100% right that the test kit you posted up about should be used to confirm.
If a combustion-coolant leak is confirmed, 99% of the time it's the head gasket, but occasionally it's a cracked head (once in a while you will see a cracked block) - so the head should be pressure checked while it's off.
Getting back to the OP - I guess this *could* be a temperature gauge issue...
I agree Mitch and Gimmie. I have the blue water tester thang as shown, I own a leak down tester, and of course comp testers. I can pin point what clyinder and valve it it is. If there is a bad head gasket the leak down tester will hiss out the rad cap neck too, and tell you which cly it is.
Bottle fixes just clog up heater cores and rads. Once it's in, it's done.
Most of that suff ends up clogging the coolant passages down low in both these items, and rodding these out is costly and I have. There is no magic on rodding a rad out, it's hard work and you get blistes on yer thumb and fingers doing a core of over 250 passages or more. Gotta have decent soldering skills too, as top and side tanks are big, and there is a risk of un-soldering passages.
Oh wait that's with copper rads, you can't rod out cheap junk! LOL What am I tawkin about. That skill died ages ago. These days you just drop coins and get a new plastic mirical with alloy fins. Carry on
No Mitch. He's loosing coolant. The temp gauge won't read hot air. No sooner does the sender go dry and it will read stone cold. The engine is anything but stone cold. It's warp time, and we ain't tawkin start wars.
No Mitch. He's loosing coolant. The temp gauge won't read hot air. No sooner does the sender go dry and it will read stone cold. The engine is anything but stone cold. It's warp time, and we ain't tawkin start wars.
I'm a she!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
That skill died ages ago. These days you just drop coins and get a new plastic mirical with alloy fins. Carry on 
