Almost thought I blew my....

[Rosco]

Head Gasket!!!

I just found my coolant leak....The rubber hose that connects to the coolant line(behind the head) for the turbo....So I'm kind of happy it wasn't my head gasket. I really am not sure how I blew the hose, but I really don't care. Anyway, anybody have a pic of the back of the SR outside of the engine bay? I did my swap about a year and half ago and I just want to visually confirm something......... I spent all last week doing work on the car of the little things I knew I had to fix. I will be driving to Austin,TX from Binghamton, NY and I want to fix/check everything before I set out on my trip. So I'm really glad it happened before I left and not during my trip.

[srpowered240sx]

................................cool? a hose is way easier to fix than a hg.

[Rosco]

Yeah definately cool....I'll write the whole story down once I fix it.

[DuckyD]

Here's the picture you are looking for.



Ignore the arrows.

[Blown240sx]

That turbo coolant line is a ***** I just finished working on mine in the car since I dont want to pull it to fix it and well I should have pulled the motor it would have probably been easier.

[DuckyD]

hahaThis will be the 3rd time taking the turbo out. It is a major PITA. I'm doing stainless steel lines so I am hoping it's slightly easier.

[Rosco]

Yeah, this thing is a PITA......I haven't got it off yet!! Oh well, maybe I'll find a little kid to fit there hands in there and do it for me. I'd rather not pull the motor just for that little hose; seems a little extreme. Any Tips?

[DuckyD]

Remove your factory catch can (if it's there) and get a good pair of needle nose pliers.

It sucks.

[9240sx]

Try from under the car.I was putting a starter in the other day and i could see that hose..Sould have more room that way,then from the top..That hose broke on my freinds z32 TT and we had to pull the transmission to even see it!!

[Sil80315]

Most likely Ill be that little kid you pay to fix your hose.

[Rosco]

Most likely Ill be that little kid you pay to fix your hose.

HA!! Well I got the hose off and tomorrow I plan on putting everything back together. WOO HOO!!

So as promised I will fill you all in on my crazy incidents of late. I went up to SIL80315's garage to change manifold gasket,turbo gasket, and O2 housing gasket...So we do everything, take our time and make sure everything is good and we got done around midnight. I had to work the next morning so I figured I'd better leave now so I can get some sleep (I live in Binghamton which is about 90 miles from where SIL80315 lives). So I'm driving back and almost immediately I hit an ice storm...so here I am driving 30 mph on the highway while other ppl (morons I tell ya) are passing me at 55 and up(way too fast for conditions). I decided to check the road by pulling over and getting out of the car, as soon as I got out of the car I lost my footing and fell. Thats how slippery it was!! I got to cortland and things seem to be alot clearer so I got out again and checked the road. This time things were nice and dry!! So I decided to do some 3rd gear drops on the highway. I was definately pleased with the fruits of my labour!! Around four miles out to Binghamton my oil light started flashing, So I slowed down a bit and it went away....a little odd. Now 2 miles out from Binghamton it flashed again...WTF!?!?!? I got at the end of my exit and the light stayed on. I'm thinking "Oh ****!!!" at this point. So I drove it 1/4 of mile down the road to the gas station and checked my oil level of which there was none!!!! Still a little odd to me was, the motor sounded normal and not a hint of knock or any other weird sound....So I ran in (after a quick call to SIL80315) and filled up my engine with some ****TY Exxon superflo 10w30 (hey oil is oil at this point). I drove her home and went to bed pissed as hell thinking WTF did I do?!?!?

The next morning my oil level was decent enough to drive to work, so I drove to work comtemplating what and where the oil leak was. After work I decided to get right back at it and try to fix the leak. With the help of a friend we started tearing apart the turbo side of the motor (that's where the oil was leaking from, so I assumed it was a line). I got underneath and my buddy said "hey it looks like your oil return fitting has oil all over it". Sure enough it did, but I looked over at the hose and to my astonishment there was a huge gash in the rubber hose for the oil return!!! So we fixed it put it back together and drove it around and had some fun....I noticed it was pulling unusually hard........ So on my way home I blew off IC piping and I popped my hood to fix it and noticed two things immediately. #1. In my stupidity and impatience I had forgot to put the vaccum line on for the wastegate!!!!!!!

#2. My turbo was glowing Orange!!! I wish I had a camera at this point!!

So I put it all back together and drive home thinking how lucky of late I have been. The next day I drove to my friends house and hung out. I left the house and had a little fun driving on some super windy roads back to the highway. Then I noticed my Temp gauge was 2 slashes away from H. I shut her off thinking for some reason maybe my fans didn't come on. I put the fans on using my handy dandy override (which consists of a green wire that I just attach to the positive terminal of the battery). I waited for about 10 mins and drove on to the highway. Temps look okay, oh.....wait a second, they start rising again!!! So by this time I'm thinking "WTF?!?!" is going on. I touched the Radiator and it was cold to the touch. So I popped off the cap slowly hoping to not get sprayed and to my horror there was no coolant in it!!!! There was also White Smoke inside the engine bay. I automatically assumed the worst and though I blew my head-gasket.....So I towed it home and through some trial and error the next day we figured it to be the hose that I'm replacing Now!!! Thank God!!

So that's my story.......sorry it was a little long.

[Logan76]

So pretty much, you guys replaced all your gaskets on your turbo side, then you blew all your oil out because of a split hose, then you overboosted to probably 19psi or so, (how did you not notice it on your boost gauge?) then you put your wg line back on, and now your losing coolant and overheating, but your fixing that, also due to a cracked hose, moral of the story is...rubber hoses suck.

[Rosco]

Well I officially have a blown head-gasket now.... I drained my oil this morning and it looked fine. So I put some oil in it and ran it until it warmed up and gave it a couple revs and drained the oil again and whala......Nice foamy oil...

I geuss it was bound to happen sooner or later, but it still sucks....Now it's time for some ARP head studs and Cometic multi-layer metal head gasket. Should I do anything else whilst the head is off?? I will be pulling the motor out to make things easier on me. I have a 2 week time frame in which to do this I think I can make it way under that time. Keep in mind I'm doing this before my 2700 mile trip to Austin, TX...

[srpowered240sx]

bummer, guess that overboosting did it then huh?

[Rosco]

Yeah, I couldn't tell you what my gauge was reading though....I caught a glimpse once and it was around 11 PSI, but I believe that was after the fact....I'm gonna do a write-up with pics for the studs and head-gasket so hopefully there will good documentation for all..

[srpowered240sx]

sweet. ill keep this a watched topic then. are you gonna do a independent write up, or just keep this thread going??

[Vr6WantSr20det]

man that coolant hose in the back is a B!ATCH!!! i pulled the turbo/manifold to change the gasket and changed to stainless braided lines. Me and my brother working from both sides of the engine bay got it off and replaced. Dont wanna work on that line EVER again when the motor is in car. But with the braided lines shouldn't be a problem and much easier to install/remove turbo.

[DuckyD]

man that coolant hose in the back is a B!ATCH!!! i pulled the turbo/manifold to change the gasket and changed to stainless braided lines. Me and my brother working from both sides of the engine bay got it off and replaced. Dont wanna work on that line EVER again when the motor is in car. But with the braided lines shouldn't be a problem and much easier to install/remove turbo.

Like I said, I am about to do the stainless lines as well. I got the Circuit Sports.Does the line go all the way to the other side of the motor (replacing that rubber hose)? I called Enjuku and they weren't sure.

[Rosco]

Well guys, my "Foamy-oil" is a result of air being in my system (basically it looked like coke when it came out). I did a compression check and every cylinder was 127-130psi (cold/dry compression test). So sorry guys no write-up (no blown head gasket=t3h win for me!!). So any1 want ARP head Studs and Cometic multi-layer head gasket? I would keep them and try to do it later but I need the money to be put towards my moving exspenses.