From jmac;
It's possibly the head gasket - there's plenty of times they'll blow between a fire ring (the part of the gasket that goes directly around the top of each cylinder bore) and a water jacket. Then there'll be no oil in the water, but bubbles as you describe.

But in your case, you are getting slight pockets of steam (or just combustion by products) pushing through from the blown gasket from the cylinder which will then push the water level up in the rad sort of thing - so that definitely sounds more like it.

This sounds about right, and i'm not really happy about it at all, because it looks like it was leaking from water jacket into cyl.3 because there is corrosion marks in the bore from where the water has been doing its 'magic'.
Also pretty much all the cylinders look to be stuffed in the way that the rings would probably be munched by the small bits of corrosion on the bore, and i'm suprised it wasn't choking out smoke.

I'd also probably suggest (esp if the leak was only minor) trying 'chemi-weld'. It's the stuff that is usually run through a motor if it has had to be sleeved, as a final effort to ensure sealing the cooling system. be warned the stuff isn't magical, but it can work (I'd go as far as to suggest that if you _do_ try it, to put an old stuffed radiator on there to do it, as it can slightly clog rad cores) I have seen motors go on to do over 50,000km with one treatment of chemiweld. It's worth a look for a daily driver or a car you don't wish to spend millions on.

The pinky-orangey stuff i related to is what looks to be this 'stop-leak' and seems to have blocked the water galleries and radiator up pretty badly. So now i wonder why the previous owner had filled it with this stuff.


Im starting to think that they sold it to me as a dud, cos ive pretty much had to replace or rebuild every part of the motor, which was supposed to be;
A15 motor
-Rebuilt motor (have only run to keep seals wet!! and give it a rev to show off)
-electronic dizzy
-cutsom cam
-twin 40mm dellorto's
-tuftrided valves

Spoke to Paul at Duncan n Foster's who did my head, will be getting it back on Monday cos its all done. He cleaned it up and crack-tested it and came up sweet he said, so gotta be happy with that ay. So will slap it all back together next week hopefully, and get my radiator done and fingers crossed the motherfudgerrrr will go 'good'
So over spending money on the sled that i shouldn't have to, but oh well now i know the motor pretty much from top to bottom.
Now im off to druel over some buckets at the Drifting.

So you never actually cooked the motor (i.e ceased, spun bearing, collapsed rings > scored bores etc etc)? If that's the case then you're all good.

Nice ride height by the way and those are some neat wheels too.

Nah it never actually stopped running Chris but it was extremely hot and was just eatin the water so wasnt drivable and needed to be fixed.
Rear end sits mad ay its got perfect fitment, but will sort the front out when i get the coilovers done and the wheel alignment sorted to my liking, ya kno what i mean
Im pretty happy with it now and im making good progress, hope to have it mostly sorted by end of March.
Also got a Cusco strut brace under the xmas tree so im cheerin'

'Also got a Cusco strut brace under the xmas tree so im cheerin'
bens been good this year!!!lucky bastard

Put it all back together today, sorted out the issue with the manifold water tunnels, just tapped a thread and screwed in stainless grub screws.
Gotta pick up the radiator from the shop tomorrow, it was pulled apart and checked but wasn't blocked or coated at all apparently.
Hopefully now that i've replaced everything in the cooling system it should not overheat and run like a dream.
The guy at Riverstone Radiators was a decent guy and said if i have any problems once it finished, to bring it in and he'll have a look over it for me.
I can only hope its sweet so lets keep our fingers crossed haha

Here's some pics of my handy work on my pipes;
from this



to this

so what was the problem u think?must have something to do with the manifold water jackets you just plugged hey?so eastern creek tonight?

Well we have discovered what may have been causing the problem all along. The radiator cap section in between the radiator and the thermostat, spews the coolant out the overflow pipe even when at idle. This means that the system is 1, losing water and gaining air, and 2, doesn't stay pressurised.
So i've blocked it off to see how it goes and runs mint, so at least now i think i've solved the puzzle, and checked out the internals of my motor haha.
Probs gunna get the radiator bloke to weld a new radiator cap section to the actual radiator, so that its all new, and i was gunna get this done anyway cos the hoses on there at the moment are bodgeyyyyyy. Then plumb up some sort of proper overflow system.

Well anyways today is xmas, and i got a Cusco strut brace for the beast so im cheerin'.
Take a look.

cars looking good ben,brace is mint!
so any luck yet?

Yeppp got some progress, i managed to get the radiator mouth fitted today, and get it back running. I'm just chasing down the overflow tank i bough off ebay for it now and then it shall all be schweeeeet.
I rekon the new setup looks and functions alot better anyway.

Hopefully in couple of weeks should have enough dough to finish off the coilovers and chuck them in