Cylinder head/head gasket problems

[Joshua Van Tol]

On Tuesday, January 7, 2003, at 05:06  PM, Eyvind Spangen wrote:

> I have pulled the head on the 90q today. 4 missing exhaust manifold
> studs, lots of rotten rubber hoses etc.
>
> But the biggest problem: I can't see any defects on the head gasket..
> BUT I can see a hairline crack in the head at cylinder #5.. The crack
> is not between the valves.

Is the cylinder with the crack much cleaner than the rest? That would
indicate that it was passing some coolant into the combustion chamber.
A hairline crack like you describe can go into the water jacket and
cause copious loss of coolant.

>
> What is possible? Can that extremely small crack cause the problems,
> or is it likely that the head gasket was leaking, but not so much that
> I could see it?
>
> I'll send the head to a machine shop tomorrow to make sure it's flat
> before I put it back on, if it ever gets back on.. I'll let them
> pressure test it to find any possible leaks, but it'd be great to hear
> something from you in here too..
>
> I thought that the I5 gasoline engines were pretty tough, and that a
> small overheat (driven 2 minutes without much coolant in -20 degrees
> C) would not cause head problems..
>
> --
> E. Spangen
> '86 Audi 100 2.2 CS quattro
>