318ti.org forum - View Single Post - Hosed issues cleared up, now I have no spark.

performanceisland · 10-26-2014, 04:45 PM

after further investigating i am going with blown head gasket diagnosis, after putting a bit of oil in the cylinders i get it to crank and actually fire, not start but was able to see exhaust smoke going out of radiator, i have almost no coolant due to a huge crack in radiator, the vehicle has history of oil changes, the oil in it looked good, inside of engine under cover is nice, no signs of sludge, timing chain is tight as can be, it has 140k miles on it, and the huge loss of coolant leads me to believe that it's the head gasket, it just is probably really blown good, and my guess is that the oil in the cylinders helped seal it to get it firing, there is signs of leak at head gasket on the lower right hand portion. or worst case i think cracked/warped head, so i think i am going to attempt the repair. the body of this ti is so nice id hate to sell it as is. After i have the head off i can check the pistons/rings for play, my experience from doing rings in other vehicles is that if it's the rings, ill be able to move the piston slightly of axis by hand, at least with the kind of compression loss i have, i think it's a good educated guess. What you think john?

10-26-2014, 04:45 PM	#40
performanceisland Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: usa Posts: 378 iTrader: (1) Photo Gallery	after further investigating i am going with blown head gasket diagnosis, after putting a bit of oil in the cylinders i get it to crank and actually fire, not start but was able to see exhaust smoke going out of radiator, i have almost no coolant due to a huge crack in radiator, the vehicle has history of oil changes, the oil in it looked good, inside of engine under cover is nice, no signs of sludge, timing chain is tight as can be, it has 140k miles on it, and the huge loss of coolant leads me to believe that it's the head gasket, it just is probably really blown good, and my guess is that the oil in the cylinders helped seal it to get it firing, there is signs of leak at head gasket on the lower right hand portion. or worst case i think cracked/warped head, so i think i am going to attempt the repair. the body of this ti is so nice id hate to sell it as is. After i have the head off i can check the pistons/rings for play, my experience from doing rings in other vehicles is that if it's the rings, ill be able to move the piston slightly of axis by hand, at least with the kind of compression loss i have, i think it's a good educated guess. What you think john? Last edited by performanceisland; 10-26-2014 at 04:49 PM.