Hey guys! My sister owns a 93 accord 2.2L Auto. Recenty the car has been overheating and coolant DISAPPEARING. I did the usual checks for leaks on radiator, hoses, etc. I did find a VERY slow leak near the drain plug on the rad, so i used some rad filler after flushing out all the junk that has accumulated. I then replaced all new coolant and even topped up the overflow just in case Well after an hour of normal town driving, it began to overheat again. Drove it home, let it cool and then noticed that all the coolant in both the rad AND the overflow bottle was gone. So we tried it again and this time my sister managed to drive to Katy, TX an hour away and it happened again!!!

She took it to a garage and they told her that the head gasket was blown. I find this strange as there were no signs i.e. white smoke, oiil leak on block, etc. Also they said that the rad cap was fused to the rad! I have been away for a few weeks so wont have a chance to look at it until Monday, so I figured best to ask you guys for any possible reasons why this is happening. I will be doing the work mself to save some $$$, but dont want to be changing things that dont need changing.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Troy

 

The first thing I would do is pull the oil dipstick and check it to see if the oil is milky at all. Then pull a spark plug and see it it looks odd/wrong. After doing those tests I'd start the car in the driveway with full coolant and let it get up to temp then rev it up for a while and see if you can get it to overheat and watch for fluid coming out (this is after you've verified that the oil is ok...) and flush that radiator filler junk out of there... to make things less expensive i'd probably just use water for this testing, I'm guessing that once the system pressurizes you'll find your leak if there is one

 

Good Day Sir,

sounds good. So you think the garage is talking S**T? Last time I checked the oil looked perfect as she had a service not too long ago. They also said they had corrected a prob with the rad (my sister is not car savvy and she did not ask them what the prob was[]). I will give all your suggestions a go and see what comes of that. I think I will change the rad and hoses in the end just to make sure. It only has 140K mile on it as well but sadly was not treated that great by her friend, the previous owner! Thanks again.

 

before you do any replacing of parts.......

have a shop do a leakage test ,, go to a different shop , one that specializes on HONDAS , if they say that engine has a blown head gasket ,, it must be it ,and the previous shop was not full of S**T.., after various times of overheating head gasket will blow,, You won't necessarely see oil and coolant mixed, nor a lot of white smoke ,,
Like Sir said pull the plugs out and see if there is any sign of wetness ( coolant ) or rust ,,
also you should have the system pressurized to properly chk for any leaks if any .even before thay do a leakage test ... and since engine has overheated more than once, replace the thermostat as well ..
also if the top neck of the radiator is melted ,, you will need to replace the radiator , new cap will not seal properly

 

cool i will give it a go. Hopefully nothing too major

 

Call the other shop and ask them how they determined that the head gasket was bad...

Block gas test? Visual inspection of the oil condition? Cooling system pressure test? Spark plug fouling? Exhaust gas analysis?

The easiest way is the block gas test (and most effective IMO) -- it checks for the presence of hydrocarbons (those nifty by-products of combustion!) which have no business being in your coolant. A failed block gas test is almost always a pointer to a blown head gasket.

More than one way to skin a customer...

Go to autozone and buy/rent a cooling system pressure tester. It looks like a little vacuum pump with a rad cap attachment on the end of it. Pump your car's system up to 14-16 PSI, and start looking for leaks. Watch the gauge needle -- the speed at which it drops will indicate roughly the size of the leak you're dealing with here. If it loses pressure, but you can't see leaks anywhere, THEN you can start suspecting a head gasket issue.