Z22SE Head Gasket Issue.

Steve_H

Long story Short....

Bought an SRI 2.2 150 (2001) in Feb 2011.
Can ran Very well indeed.
September 2011, Loosing water from res at about 1 inch per month, No Mayo in Oil and no Oil in water.
Last week I serviced my car and there is Loads of Mayo under cap and also on Dip stick.

When I bought the Car it had a receipt from Vauxhall for £1600 for re-doing the head Gasket and also timing chains etc @ 56000 Miles.
Car is sitting on 90k now.

So... Need to re-do Head Gasket ? Or could it be something else, as Ive heard that Z22se's are Very hard engines when it comes to the Head gasket ?

Can you check for a cracked Sparkplug hole without removing the head ?

pottsey

regarding the mayo ,do you do a lot of short journeys ,as this could be the cause of the mayo ,mine is the same once i take it for a good long drive it clears

Steve_H

i dont do more than 2 miles at a time for weeks.
usually 2miles a day and 5 at weekend.

Daz

that will be the issue then fella... used to get the same on my old 2.2 vec when i lived closer to work, was doin 12 miles max per day and under the cap was creamy

Matt

The wife's Corsa is exactly the same. She does about 6 miles each way to work, and there is mayo under the oil cap on hers. She took it for a blast to North Wales, and it went away for about a week.

vocky

the z22se head gasket rarely, if ever, fails.

I have only heard of one or two failures, both lost the coolant before the gasket failed and even then the engine was ran without coolant for a period of time

Steve_H

thanks for the replies.

good to know its prob not the head gasket.

so its either short journey syndrome or i could have cracked head by over tightening plugs ?

How would i check for plug to tight ?

AceOdinn

My 2.2 had two same cylinder head faults - head was cracked on camshafts bed, and antifreeze gets into the oil.
Had antifreeze lose, had mayo under the cap and water in throttle.
So I guess it's pretty common fault.

Steve_H

AceOdinn said:
My 2.2 had two same cylinder head faults - head was cracked on camshafts bed, and antifreeze gets into the oil.
Had antifreeze lose, had mayo under the cap and water in throttle.
So I guess it's pretty common fault.

So thats from over tightening Spark plugs ?

MikeS

well you will notice it if coolant moves into the engine

it will be a pain to start and will misfire at cold etc

check no water coming from water pump back of engine

AceOdinn

Steve H said:
So thats from over tightening Spark plugs ?

Nope, it's because of engineering fault I guess, I was looking web for such accidents and found out that it's common for cold regions, like my city and all scandinavia. I think because of big temperature difference while engine warming or something.
🙁

AceOdinn

MikeS said:
well you will notice it if coolant moves into the engine

it will be a pain to start and will misfire at cold etc

check no water coming from water pump back of engine

By the way, I had no such symptoms both times.
Maybe just a slightly rough idle.

And there was no antifreeze on deep stick at all, as well.

MikeS

perhaps you caught your head gasket leaking early ?

i noticed mine when i saw coolant being burnt - hazy green smoke - let out the pressure in the expansion tank and it stopped it

AceOdinn

MikeS said:
perhaps you caught your head gasket leaking early ?

i noticed mine when i saw coolant being burnt - hazy green smoke - let out the pressure in the expansion tank and it stopped it

no, it was not the gasket problem, not even close, mate :p