blown gasket? 1998 Accord 4 cylinder
 

I attached the Prestone flush kit, and installed a new radiator to my accord.

I flushed it, ( it had been sitting for about 4 months), and it showed dark copper residue to it.

I refilled it with anti freeze, and took it for a drive.
Then it started to lose torque, and it would not accelerate more than 30 mpg.

There was murky fluid all over the place, coming from the radiator.

I checked the dipstick, and the oil was not creamy or milky , which would indicate a blown gasket.

I refilled with water, and the car got me back home , and with some acceleration.

Im confused? Do I have a blown head gasket? Will the car still drive with a blown gasket, as it did?

I was able to get it by driving approxiamately about a half mile.

With the flush, is the flush liquid still in my engine and causing problems?

confused, and able to repair ........im a shady tree mechanic, and have manuals.....though not good at diagnosis.

Car will drive fine (in some cases) w/ blown head gasket and oil may not contaminate the coolant.

A good test is the chemical test to detect presence/absence of exhaust gas in the coolant.

good luck

I did notice that the dipstick oil meter went down a bit. I had a new oil change in it, and it showed at least one significant mark lower. It was just above medium high. Last level was at low.
Since the dipstick did not show milky oil, could this be a main seal problem?

Given the age of the engine and an assumed relatively high number of miles, oil consumption can come from any number of places; the main seal would be pretty far down the list of suspects.

Flush is in transmission fluid. ??????
 

Well, I know it is not a blown head gasket.

I used the Prestone Head Gasket Fix, solution. It seems that the solution has been going through the transmission fluid......??? Is this Ok?

I feel the solution is not making my transmission shift into higher gear.

How would I go about getting the transmission fluid out?

Do I need to get it professionally flushed?

I may be above the limit level of transmission in the reservoir?
How do I remove some of it?

Confused

It sounds to me very much like your transmission cooler (which is probably inside the radiator) has failed and you are intermixing coolant and ATF. If that's the case you've got to replace the radiator and then to somehow purge all of the ATF from the transmission and replace it with fresh ATF. Even then there may already be enough damage to the transmission to cause it to fail.

UPDATE. New Specifics
 

After 8 flushes, I was able to get the ATF back to normal.

On the 7th & 8th Flushes, I added Seafoam TransTune.
I was thinking it would help clean up anything in there with the flush.

Well, after some consultation from many Auto Parts Guys, (Autozone, O'Reillys, etc). Most of them told me that Honda Transmissions don't agree with most aftermarket additives.

The car is shifting into gears, I can accelerate, but not over 40 mph. The transmission , when operating, pulls fine, and there are no noises. I believe the transmission to be fine.

I checked on my repair CD symptom chart, and it says that the transmission filter need to be cleaned out.
I am trying to locate that now.

The new thing is that ive tried flushing out all the Seafoam Transtune, and the ATF now comes out dirty and brown. Is this the result of using Seafoam?

Could it be a seal that has broken and its leaking oil into the ATF?

If so, How can I test it?

I am not losing oil capacity, so I may assume this is the result from flushing with Seafoam Transtune?

thanks for all your replies and help fellas

Kind Regards

thomas.wine@gmail.com

I do not believe the Seafoam has been of any benefit to your transmission, and it may well have hurt it. As for the brown and dirty ATF, I still suspect you're mixing coolant and ATF via the radiator.

Isn't it a new radiator? If so, that's a pretty quick failure.

The Honda auto-trans doesn't have a filter like most others. There's no "pan" on the bottom of the transmission that you would remove to see the filter. It does have some kind of screen that is accessible during a rebuild but not for routine replacement.

I'm kind of running out of first-hand expertise here. Besides a 98 4-cyl auto just like yours, everything else I owned had a clutch pedal.