head gasket or inlet manifold leak?

[arit 0]

Looking for some help and advice. My 1.6 gti was running fine....then started blowing white smoke/steam and coolant level light came on. The temp gauge is erratic so could not tell for sure if it was overheating. Didn't smell super hot or anything and car ran fine no missing or issues. I pulled the plugs and cylinder 3 plug was water wet as was top of piston...clearly coolant in bore. I then did a comp test and all cylinders were 145 psi except 3 which was 90.

 

I figured must be head gasket so started strip down. Once I pulled the inlet manifold off I noticed a lot of coolant ran out of the area around cylinder 3 and notice also the inlet track was very clean compared to the others (see pic's) My question is could it be the gasket on the inlet manifold letting coolant into the cylinder and if so would that affect the comp in that cylinder?

 

Cheers

 

Ari

[arit 0]

update - after pulling inlet manifold off and gotten rid of the coolant in the cylinder comp is back up to 145 psi!

[Leslie green 111]

Did you take all the plugs out to do the test as if not a gasket fail between 2 cylinders won't always show up .

[arit 0]

good call, I'll do that

[welshpug 1,661]

its worth a go with a new gasket, looks like someone has been in there bodging previously with the traces of RTV as well as a gasket.

 

those waterways are nt required on a gti so you can tap and plug them with a grubscrew if you want, however a fresh inlet gasket would suffice, make sure it is an injection type that does not cover the injectors.

[farmer 328 1 Cars]

Peugeot are really cheap for a new inlet gasket

Edited March 10, 2018 by farmer

[arit 0]

Cheers fella's, I will give it a crack replace the inlet gasket. I just did another comp test and 140 psi across all four.