Hi Everyone,

I am having a problem with my EB 6 cylinder and i can't work it out.

The other day i was driving fine then all of a sudden the idle was really rough like it was missing but when accelerating it is fine then yesterday i started it up, it was missing again but it was missing while i accelerated for the first couple of minutes then it was fine again now today i drove it, idle was bad but accelerated fine but now it is overheating and using water and i can't find where the water is going and there is no water in the oil.

Does any of this make any sense to anyone and how do i know what to fix or what is wrong with it.

Thank you, any help would be appreciated.

Pull all the plugs and let us know which one has coolant on it.

head gasket failure!

Head Gasket + 10

Yea ok i figured as much damn pain in the butt, i will check on the weekend which plug and let you know.

So basically it must be the water going into the cylinder and burning with the fuel or straight to the exhaust, is that right?

try 5 or 6

+1 head gasket. My EF did the same. Idled like crap, especially on startup - could hardly keep it running in start/stop traffic. But ran fine above 1500RPM. Used about half a litre of water a day.

The gasket has probably failed between a coolant passage and a cylinder. The pressurised coolant is leaking or spraying into the cylinder, vapourising and exiting with the exhaust gases. At idle, there is enough coolant to prevent combustion, at least some of the time. At revs, it works just like water/alcohol injection, and runs sweet. It is worse on startup because coolant has had time to drain into the cylinder, accumulating there. On startup, you might see an abnormal amount of water or steam coming out the tailpipe, and it will probably smell like coolant.

Don't wait too long before fixing it. The worst case scenario is hydraulic lock. There is only 75-80ml of space above the piston at the top of the stroke. Water does not compress. If there is more than 80ml of coolant in the cylinder and it's on the compression stroke when you try to start it, there is nowhere for the water to go, the piston will stop and something will have to give - probably the conn rod.

It was easy to spot the offending cylinder in my EF. All the spark plug insulators were the normal light brown/grey colour, except one - it was gleaming white all over - steam-cleaned by the coolant. When I took the head off, all the pistons had carbon build-up, except one - it was clean, bare aluminium.

Sorry for the bad news, but if this is the first time it has happened to your EB, the old girl has had a really good run. Most E-series head gaskets don't survive that long. When you fix it, use the AU MLS gasket instead, and you won't have to do the job again. Plus, it gives you a small boost in compression ratio.

Thanks efxr6wagon, i have one other question can anyone tell me why a vrs and bolt kit for a pre 93 4.0l is different to a post 93 vrs and bolt kit. I didnt think there were any differences besides the fact they replaced the cork rocker gasket with a rubber one.

can anyone shed some light on this before i order it.

thanks.

The rocker cover off pre EF cars had the ½ moon at the front as part of the rocker cover gasket, EF onwards had the ½ moon as part of the rocker cover thats where the part number difference comes from. otherwise the gasket kits are identical.

Just out of curiosity how long will it last like this only because i need to go to Sydney next week and if i start to take it apart i and have other problems i won't have the car. I am only 1 hour out of Sydney will it last for another week or there is no way to tell.