Is it the headgasket

[trem1]

Hi all, i need some help/confirmation on this fault on my daughters little pug.First its a 1996 1.1 petrol and on friday she noticed the red high temperature light had came on, didnt know what to do about it so drove it to my house but we wernt in so she just ignored the light anyhow last night i checked the water and it appeared to be airlocked(we put antifreeze in 2 weeks ago) BUT there was some 'steam/smoke' out of the exhaust and a slight mis-fire. she took it home and all seemed well but about 5mins after startup today the light was back on. So we whipped the thermostat out today and put it in a pot of boiling water and it didnt open so we thought we had found the problem,rebuilt the car without thermostat and it seemed ok but steam/smoke out of exhaust was still there. she took the car home and enroute there was a bang but she couldnt see anything until she got home and popped the bonnet and it's blown the expansion bottle cap off.

We think this definately confirms its the headgasket but if anyone knows different let me know please, we cant fix it till next weekend so we have a week to work out what the problem is.BTW she's totally skint so it needs to be right first time as cheap as possible
Cheers
Neil

[chopper1192]

Sounds like it could be HGF Neil. Not terribly uncommon on the 1.1.

Best bet is to get the cooling system pressure tested. If it won't hold pressure, but there are no external leaks, the HGF it is.

Good luck.

[GTSX]

If it's a multi point injection (not likely at that age I must say) I have a spare head that's been cleaned, skimmed and pressure tested in Hull.

[stevoxsi]

Any white goo in the oil? Sure sign of hg problems.

[trem1]

sorry i shouldve updated this long before now. it was the headgasket, allowing water into cylinder number 4. But no milkiness in the oil just excess pressure at the expansion bottle.