dome

Hello

I'm on the lookout for an Alfa 75 3.0 V6 Cloverleaf at the moment. Went to look at one last night but the only thing that put me off was the presence of oil (unburnt, not emulsioned) in the header tank. There was no emulsion under the filler cap, no white smoke and the temperature guage behaved itself. The question is, is it definitely a blown head gasket or could it be something else??? I ran a Peugeot 205 xs like this for over a year with no problems, however I'm not too sure about doing this with the Alfa. Other than that the car is lovely and comes with a years MOT and a massive history file so it has definitely been looked after, the price is good also. I'm tempted but not sure. What do you guys reckon???

Mark Miwurdz

If you're not sure, there's no doubt - walk away.

Cheers
Kav

Jap2Scrap

Are you certain it was oil and not the lubricant in the anti-freeze? That can give that 'petrol on water' rainbow effect, if that's what you're seeing. Your best bet is to get the water system checked for hydrocarbons using a sniffer. An AA or RAC check should include this or failing that ask an independant garage for a price to do one.

Oil in the header tank and also Water in the engine would normally result in emulsified 'mayonnaise' in the caps.

rallycol

iTrader: (4)

How much was it ?

The Zohan

The car may well be blowing oil past the gasket into the water and not always vise-versa.

I sounds like an expensive fix. I have found the head gasket usually goes due to other problems such as a blocked rad, warped head, etc.

Ther are bound to be plenty of others to look at.

Paul

dome

Juist spoke to an Alfa specialist who reckons it might not be head gasket-talking himself out work there. The cars pretty tidy other than that problem and there's no many of them about. I'm taking a mechanic up with me tonight, going to do all the usual checks-look for bubbles in the expansion tank, make sure it heats up OK etc. We'll see. Bottom line is he needs the sale more than I need the car, if it's not cheap enough or theres any doubt I'll walk away.

Cheers

Brian

dome

Went back up last night, there was some signs of emulsion starting to form and a tiny wee bit of white smoke from the exhaust. Neither of these were there on Sunday night. It's a shame cos the car has full history going back to 1993, all the electric work and i drives brilliantly. Owner wouldn't go below #1100, even with the dodgy gasket(s).

Ah well, the search continues....