I'am in the process of repairing blown head gasket. Are there any good ways of cleaning grease (water oil mixture) out of turbo? Can I just flush it with a light weight oil or is something more drastic required? I had Castrol Syntec in the car when it overheated. I first thought the car had over heated from a leaky hose. Replaced hoses etc and changed oil to Mobil 1. Thought every thing was OK. Car ran fine but then started showing signs of blow head gasket. White smoke, hard starting and slight miss. Not sure which oil was in car when head gasket blew if its important. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks

Brad, and/or Abe Crombie

I have a similar problem... in that I too have a blown head gasket. I have two cylinders firing very low... a bit of oil in the coolant expansion tank... and experience rough starting, particularly when the car has sat for a day or two without starting. The question: Since you are in the process of fixing your blown head gasket, would it be possible for you to list the steps I would have to take to fix a blown head gasket. Starting from which manuals I should get to help me complete the process. I have a 1990 740T wagon... yes the one I have not seen a Haynes book for. I do have the 1989 haynes 740 manual... however I don't know if it applies to the 90 740T with respect to fixing blown head gaskets. So basically, what reading material will I need to what are the 1,2,3 steps in fixing this problem. Thanks in advance...

William

Well got the Haynes manual which goes up to 1988. It is not too bad and the 4cylinder section seems to match the engine in my car. I found out that the engine had been replaced before I purchased it. The engine is a 1993. Got the head off yesterday. Was not to difficult. Points to consider beyond the book. Remove the turbo hoses and the turbo oil line from top of turbo as they keep the exhaust manifold from moving. There is also a bracket below the turbo and an exhaust pipe bracket that need to be removed or loosened. On the other side there are temp sensors to unplug and a water hose that needs to be removed before the head can come off. The two back nuts on the intake manifold are a bear to get to. Once the intake is loose pull it up and away . I tied mine in place and tried to leave as much as possible hooked up. I left the distributor hooked up and removed it after the head was out. Just don't forget to unplug its coil wires. Most of the stuff in the book is right it just doesn't seem to go far enough. One other thing when removing the head you will need a 14 mm socket 1/2 in drive, a breaker bar and maybe a cheater. Some of the bolts on the head were real tight and some were not so nearly as tight. I removed the cam after the head was out. I read the book three or four times and still had the cam jump up as I was removing it. Loosen up the nuts on the cam caps 1/4 of a turn at a time intill the nuts are loose. Do not remove them. Take a plastic screw driver handle and tap each cap till you have them broke free. Do not pry them or hit the cam. Once they are loose then back off the nuts alittle at a time till all the valve spring tension is released. I thought the tension was gone and unscrewed all the nuts.Then some of the caps broke loose and the cam flopped up. Going to have the machine shop check it tomorrow and see if it was damaged. Going to have a valve job done, head milled, and replace the timing belt. Not sure what else to do, any suggestions out there? If there is any thing else I can help with just ask

Brad HIGHDESERTHILLS@prodigy.net

I would assume you are changing the oil as part of gasket repalcement.

If not, do an oil change to get the fouled oil out.

If the oil got really milky looking then you will need to run engine a few minutes and then change it again to get the coolant out of the oil cooler circuit. The turbo itself holds almost no oil and nothing needs to be done as far as the turbo goes.

The oil cooler circuit has a thermostat and the oil won't flow through the oil cooler until the oil temp gets to 200F or thereabouts.

A minor amount of coolant in oil is not fatal or even harmful, so if the oil didn't get milky looking then the one oil change is all you need to do.