K-Series Head Gasket- Symptoms

[Charley Farley]

Hello,

Please excuse my engineering ignorance; but...

I have an 1800 Supersport and am obviously familiar with it's reputation for head-gasket failure. The car is currently on just over 8,000 miles.

The last couple of times I have been out in it, the gauge has gone up to 80 as normal after 5-10 minutes; but it has then dropped down to about 60 - 70... Everything else has been normal.

Somebody mentioned that this might be a sign that all might not be well with the head-gasket. I have checked under the oil-filler cap & seen no 'milkiness' as others advise. Are there any other checks I could carry out?

Could it be the sender unit playing up as often happens with the oil-pressure sender? Or should I be seriously worried?

If it has gone- how much are we looking at to get it sorted & can anybody recommend anybody in East Anglia?

Thanks in advance

Charlie

[bikemonster]

Watch for coolant level dropping, gungey scum on the coolant and mayo on the diptick.

When my MG TF160 lunched its head gasket, the surface of the coolant looked "odd" and there were traces of mayo (oil and water emulsion) on the dipstick. That was after 36,000km or so.

If you do have HGF and catch it before it turns into a massive overheating exercise, it should not be too expensive a fix.

[Piers917]

As the temperature is dropping it sounds like it maybe a thermostat problem. If it was HG related i would've thought the temp would go up?

[Charley Farley]

Thanks- it is actually in for MOT tomorrow; so I am going to get them to do a block test whilst there- apparently that should put my mind at rest (or not...) Fingers crossed.

[allforone]

Charley Farley said:

Hello,

Please excuse my engineering ignorance; but...

I have an 1800 Supersport and am obviously familiar with it's reputation for head-gasket failure. The car is currently on just over 8,000 miles.

The last couple of times I have been out in it, the gauge has gone up to 80 as normal after 5-10 minutes; but it has then dropped down to about 60 - 70... Everything else has been normal.

Somebody mentioned that this might be a sign that all might not be well with the head-gasket. I have checked under the oil-filler cap & seen no 'milkiness' as others advise. Are there any other checks I could carry out?

Could it be the sender unit playing up as often happens with the oil-pressure sender? Or should I be seriously worried?

If it has gone- how much are we looking at to get it sorted & can anybody recommend anybody in East Anglia?

Thanks in advance

Charlie

The senders are not very good. If there is no mayo or it is not getting hot or losing water then I would say 99% it is not gasket. Do yourself a favour and search on DVA Power (Dave Andrews), he has forgotten more than most people know and is a very nice guy.

BTW fit a mechanical oil guage ASAP, the stock Caterham one is a piece of junk. Have you joined the Blatchat.com it is a very good site.