I GOT MAYO! (Head gasket?)

[GRINNER]

As it says,

I have a huge amount of mayo on the oil filler cap. Now I did pressure test it last summer and it passed, so I changed the water cooled oil cooler. As I assumed that must be the problem. Now i'm having to top the water up about every three weeks. Could the oil and water mix thought the head gasket and still pass a pressure test?
I cant find any other leak from pipes and i'm in the middle of changing the radiator and fan (as that stopped working) but GSF gave me the wrong fan and due to work I cant change it yet.

Oh its a 1.8i 8v k-jet if that helps. I was thinking about putting a fast rosd cam in while I have the head off, what are people useing? I'm not wanting anything silly, just a bit more power.

Cheers GRINNER!

[the edmundator]

Are you driving long distances or just short trips? If it's the latter, you can expect to get a bit of gunk under the oil filler cap. If you're regularly doing long journeys you might have more to worry about. Has it overheated?

[GRINNER]

I am just doing short journys at the moment as the fan as been caput for a while now (well it used to come and go, now its dead) if thats so i'll put it back together and (once I get the right fan) clean it up and drive it to my mother house in Kendal from Lincoln. That should be long enough!
Still, the water is going somewhere, I cant see any holes on the old radiator, but we'll see how it gets on.

[Nate]

the fan as been caput for a while now (well it used to come and go, now its dead)

2pin or 3pin? are you sure it's not the switch in the rad that has gone? try shorting out the pins in it

[Boumsong]

Theres a chance it might not be the HG. A friend had a similar issue with a Mk2 Golf recently, turned out the cap in the expansion tank wasn't a good one/correct on and the sytem was over pressuring and popping a water seal out in the head. Changed the cap, then the oil and the problem went away. Stopped using water and the mayo vanished.

Could be worth a look.

[Nate]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/UNIVERSAL-BLOCK-T ... _962wt_939

get yourself a combustion leak tester like this one, or just ask a garage to do the test for you, which should be loads cheaper (cost me a fiver last time i had one done)

obviously a positive result could be down to headgasket, cracked head, cracked block etc, but a negative result will confirm you ain't got a problem ;)

[MikeH]

What's 'a huge amount' of mayo on the filler cap? The filler cap isn't that big. A spoonful of mayo is nothing to worry about, and is nice with chips ;)

Chances are this is condensation, due to short journeys, as already mentioned. Take it for a drive for an hour, once you've fixed the cooling system. The fact that you've had a cooling problem means it could be head gasket though.