My wife's '89 TII had some Grungy looking coolant in the radiator, so I decided to flush it out, and add new coolant. All went well, and she drove it to work for 2 days, and noticed the temp gauge was running at about 25%, vs about Mid-Gauge as before. Sounds good so far!

That weekend we decided to drive it to a friends house about 30 miles away. About 5 miles down the road I noticed the temp gauge going to 3/4's, and climbing! I stopped, and grabbed the gallon of water in the trunk. When I popped the hood the overflow tank was Bubbling over, and there was the smell of exhaust coming out of the coolant. I poured about 1/2 gallon of water into the car, which cooled it down, and limped home, and topped it off again to cool it off before shutting her down.

My first thought was blown head gasket, but no coolant in the oil, although that doesn't rule it out completely. 2nd thought is cracked head. Spark plug closest to timing belt looks Steam Cleaned compared to the other 3, and after further diagnosis, I can see water is coming out the exhaust now. Bubbles still being blown into the coolant as well.

I'm considering the possibility that this head had problems in the past, and previous owner may have used some Stop-Leak product to fix it before selling it, and I broke it loose after flushing the radiator. (I've had the car 5 years though, so it held up pretty good!) The car has about 130K miles on her, so not a bad run...

1st thought is find another 2.2 Turbo II, and drop it in. 2nd is head swap. 3rd is dump the car, although my wife REALLY likes this car.

Any thoughts, suggestions, remedies, "This is what I'd do" that you'd like to share would be appreciated.

what kind of cracking? 2.2L heads are known to crack between the seats and never cause any problems.

If you didn't "burp" the head when the new coolant was added, you probably warped the head a little and blew the head gasket. You don't know what brand headgasket it had. Pull the head get it pressure checked and resurfaced and valve job done. TU has the Mopar head gaskets and head bolts.
The rear corner of #1 is where some brand gaskets like to blow.

NOW if your wife isn't one to notice the idiot lights on, you may have also overheated the bearings.....
There are LOTS of enthusiasts in the Detroit area if you want local help finding someone to do the work.
Try http://Turbo-Mopar.com for a mechanic in your area.
Another engine is another gamble on what work and abuse the engine has seen.

No, I didn't burp the head. How is this done, for future reference? And, no, I don't know the brand of head gasket it had. Any recomendations on what to replace it with?




Well, she does watch the Temp Gauge. so I would assume she'd notice any lights as well. I didn't see any lights when it blew the coolant out either, just that steady rise of the Temp Gauge. Yes, another engine is a gamble. And the timing couldn't be worse. I just took a new job, and have to get ready to move to Indiana.

Thanks Guys!

Well, I'm thinking a crack between the water jacket & combustion chamber, or exhaust port, since it's blowing coolant out the tail pipe, and pressurizing the cooling system. It will be interesting once I pull the head. I'll take Pic's to share!

There is a plug on the top of the thermostat housing. It needs to be loosened to bleed off the air in the head. A lot of turbo mopar people also drill a 1/16" hole in the thermostat to prevent air pockets in the head. Hole goes to the top.
I'm guessing the the head gasket was ready to go and you just gave that little nudge.
You might want to blow any coolant out or the cylinder till you get it running.
There are a lot of turbo Mopar entusiast in Indiana also.

It's just the head gasket Tony, #1 cylinder is the primary culprit. When you pull the head off and take those pics, we'll see the little strip of headgasket that outlines the waterjacket passage in that back corner, has deformed and pushed in a little bit.

With 130K it's time to think about valve seals, if they are doing valve seals, then you're right there for a valve job and a little milling to make sure the deck is flat. See how it kinda 'snowballs' Ask you head shop guy to use his flatness gauge (a very thick perfectly flat bar of steel) to check the 'rear valve cover rail' for flatness. That is the little flat area where the valve cover seals along the back of the head. If a head has been previously warped but then milled flat on the deck (head gasket sealing surface) it will be true on the bottom yet twisted everywhere else including the cam journals being out of line with eachother.

Anyway check Tubo-mopar for tips on pulling the head, take those pics, get the head checked out by a qualified machinist/cylinder head shop, have them do the valve job and four new exhaust guides, and put it back together with new head bolts and a mopar performance head gasket with a light coat of Permatex copper spray gasket on each side. Good to go

Alan

Thanks Bill, I'll make sure I Burp the head when I refill the cooling system!

Thanks Alan. Looks like I have something to do this weekend now!

No time to pull the head this weekend. Hope to get it started this week, but we'll see. I might just tow this to Indiana when I move, and deal with it there...Which means I've got to get my 16V out of Storage!!!:)

You guys are fortunate that you have Alan to answer your questions. At least he doesn't get carried away with additional, improbable remedies.

Hmmm, a rare Hemi Dude sighting

Hey by the way Hemi, can you handle the 3.0 questions on that other thread? I'm a hobbyist with lot's of 2.2 experience but with the V6 powerplant I'm just spitting in the wind


Alan