300 tdi Coolant Waterfall

Hi any ideas,
noticed on my way home from work the heater was not working, opended the bonnet to find coolant all round the expansion tank, also not much left in the system, so refilled her and then when i start the engine i got a waterfall of coolant from the expansion tank, so switched off and posted this, have had probs in past with old cars coolant, normaly ended up being the thermostat but never anything like this, any ideas, worried as drove about 18 miles, temp gauge never went up above halfway though

thanks

head gasket probably caused by rad not cooling ascross entire surface

ok thanks, thought it may be that from reading other posts, was just hoping it mayhave been something more simple,.......is this an expensive job on a 300tdi or is it easy enough to do myself ?

it was the pushing out of water as soon as you start it with out having to get hot again that suggests that cylinder is blown to water way easy job on 300

if you are fit and have a reasonable set of tools its a weekend job.If it has the water level rising and falling radically as the engine turns over on the key then,in my experience,its as james says.

I had that Problem was my Headgasket changed it and all good now

ok that all sounds good, do i need to get the head skimmed and pressure tested if so can any one recommend a place i live in south cheshire

I didn't skim or pressure check and got away with it, it's a chance you take a head gasket is around 10-15 quid and if you do it your self it may be a risk you want to take to save some money.

just looked through the haynes manual, whats this about measuring piston protrusion to get the thickness for the replacement gasket thickness, would like to order it befor i start, is this just the normal haynes make a job harder than it is or do i need to do this

either fit same number of holes as was fitted or fit 3 hole gasket err5263

ok thanks for the help