Head Gasket??

A new problem has occurred with my 300Tdi when the engine is hot it restarts a bit sluggish and backfires and smokes like crazy (greyish white smoke) it’s like it for a few mins then will settle down and drive ok.

It’s done it 3 times this weekend, the turbo pipes are all silicone and not very old. Could it possibly be the head gasket? The expansion tank did split a few weeks back, but the water level seems ok, but at times you can hear water rushing and gurgling behind the dash?

Are you losing water ?

if its loosing water its minimal as just checked and the expansion tank is still half full and hissed when i undid it and its been standing for 3 hours

horse62 said:

if its loosing water its minimal as just checked and the expansion tank is still half full and hissed when i undid it and its been standing for 3 hours

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gurgling is lack of coolant expasion level is necessarily whats in engine you need to remove plug on thermostat housing for that (it needs to be overflowing)how do you mean backfires does engine seem to lock breifly when turning it over

It turns over sluggish like the battery is low and takes a bit longer to start and its popping and back firing if you try to rev it and you cant see for smoke, then it settles down after 5 mins or so and you can drive off ok, did 40 miles no trouble until I stopped for 5 mins then it did it again.

When the tank split and I replaced it, the coolant was flowing from the thermostat housing bubble free and the tank was held high while i filled it. I will have another look at it tomorrow

The gurgling behind the dash may be the heater matrix filling with water as the air gets pushed round.

Have you checked the water level at the thermostat ?

id remove head and look could be coolant entering bore

Cheers for the advice James looks like I have that job next weekend

put a pic of gasket up when you do ,youd be looking for staining across the fire ring not necessarily a piece missing

Cheers Dragonwalker as well

I will do photos of the gasket and the whole job as may help others in the future

It got worse yesterday after driving ok all week, so popped into island 4x4 tonight on my way home and got a gasket kit.

Spent 3 hours getting this far, there is one nut under the centre of the exhaust manifold, i have got it loose but its taken me an hour to undo it about 3mm so have given up for today, just cant get more than a few mm movement on the spanner.

That nut is an absolute bastard, took me ages to get it off. If you go from the front of the engine, you should be able to get a spanner on it almost horizontal and turn until it goes past the vertical, how far depends how long/skinny your arms are!

its easy 3/8 15mm socket and four inch extension

jamesmartin said:

its easy 3/8 15mm socket and four inch extension

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Really? The nut/stud is right behind the turbo, no line of sight to it at all as far as I could see on mine so not sure how you would get a socket on

short 3/8 15mm and extension ,its worked for me hundreds of times,as does gluing nut in socket to refit and screwing the extension bar with no ratchet till started

I must be stupid James, how? Its the centre bottom nut on the exhaust manifold I am on about, I can just about feel it let alone see it and keeping a spanner on it is almost impossible, my arms and wrists are scratched to bits.

yes thats the one

Bugger, I spent ages on that! This photo seems to show it