Gentlemen,
This is the first auto for me that blew a gasket.
When our '94 SAAB 9000 appeared to be loosing coolant (antifreeze) earlier
this year I put in Barr's Stop Leak. It helped to reduce the coolant loss.
Now, there is a lot of oily foam floating on the coolant in the expansion
tank, it couldn't be Barr's Stop Leak, could it? I fear that it could be a
leaking head gasket causing oil in the coolant?
Could the water pump be the cause?
When I replaced a short hose in the cooling system there was the same oily
residue in the hose. Barr's Stop Leak?
Should I do a valve job, if I have to replace the head gasket?

Peter
SAAB 9000 CSE

PeterS wrote:

If it's oils, it's not the Bars.


Your fears are very well founded.


No.


No, oil. You know it's oil ;-)


Do you mean regrind the valves? It depends on many things - the
mileage of the car, the results of a pressure test on the head,
and how long you intend to keep it.

In general, when I have a head off, I won't regrind the valves
unless there's a good reason to do it. I will, however, change
the valve stem seals and have the head skimmed.

--
Grunff

Grunff wrote:
Some years ago I had a new headgasket (for my 93 9k, not myself. The
symptoms were poor running and hesitation. However I don't think there
was oil/water mix in this case but the error code indicated the
headgasket.

Naturally, oil/water mix is a fairly sure sign of a blown headgasket,
but could there be a mild case without oil/water mix? Anyway, the
garage replaced headgasket, but said head that head skimming was not
needed in my case. Does it make sense? The car has been fine since,
in fact remarkably well behaved.

Johannes
http://sizefitter.com

Johannes H Andersen wrote:

You can certainly have a failed head gasket without water/oil
mixing. For instance, you can have combustion gasses leaking
into the cooling system.

In theory, what you do is check the head for flatness, and skim
only if it's at all out of flat. In practice, when I have the
head stripped down I take it to a small workshop where they
pressure test it and skim it as routine. This guarantees that
I'll get a good seal with the new gasket.

--
Grunff

'nuther Bob wrote:
But will skimming change the compression ratio? Could that have an ill
effect on a turbo?

Johannes H Andersen <johs (AT) sizefitter (DOT) com> wrote

Minimum cylinder head height and machining limits should be in
Bentley, Haynes, and possibly thru other sources