Arrived at work this morning to find this under the bonnet. For a while now my car (MY93 1.6S) has pushed a little bit of coolant out of the overflow pipe when pushed hard nothing major because i just keep the coolant topped up. I have taken the car to garages before about it but because it wasnt doing it then, no one could tell me what the cause was.

my oil is fine, no mixing.

I think i may have not topped up my coolant recently enough, so maybe i have leaked a bit of water (too much) the water has mixed with air in the header tank?? which is why i have froth. I'm not sure about the red colour though. I have just checked back on the car this lunchtime. The froth has gone and i now have an over filled header tank of rusty brown water.

i am a tad concerned by this. Temperature of the car never goes over half, and performance is better than ever before.

Can anyone help. Will i get home tonite?

 

Just driven home. Could this be a blocked Rad? when i get back after driving gently home, i poped the bonnet and the situation was the same but i did some investigating. I took the cap of the rad and there was no pressure and no water, ( just driven for over an hour ) the header tank was full. Mainly water now but same colour. the drivers side of the rad was warm to touch and the other side was cold. Both fans were running like crazy.

??

 

That looks like oil emulsified in the coolant in a big way.
Just to confirm - what colour was the coolant originally?

Either way you have a problem, get another pressure check done on your cooling system. As whatever problem you had before has worsened, so they should be able to trace the problem

I suspect head gasket....as a note a head gasket failure can cause the rad to become blocked in some cases making the sitution get worse.

So without investigation you won't tell if the rad problem is caused by blockages due to the head gasket - or a thermostat/pump failure caused the head gasket to go (unlikely).

I wouldn't drive it until you get it sorted, if you do have to drive it - run with the heater on full and don't go far.

 

oil and water mixed means only one thing i'm afraid, head gasket!