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Cylinder head gasket

Skintknuckles

Enthusiast
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8
Our 1984 Renault 4 gtl ( AKA Brian) has wind.
He will sit ticking over and his temperature gauge doesn't come on ,when he reaches temperature his electric fan cuts in,heater works ok.
Then you take him on the open road ,5 miles approx. his temperature light comes on ,his heater doesn't blow warm air and his expansion bottle starts gurgling.Also his radiator cap was blowing off steam a little.There is no water getting into oil.
I've replaced thermostat and electric fan switch on the radiator to eliminate those faults,but I fear this may be his cylinder head gasket,any advice I would be very grateful.
97000 miles on clock,we have owned him 6 years.He's a super little car and much loved,he appeared in
'My Cool Classic' book several years ago.
Thanks in advance for any ideas anyone has.
 
Hi there, you say there isn't any water in the oil, how about oil in the water? Also have you bled the cooling system after fitting the fan switch and thermostat? Maybe there was an airlock and it's still there as you've worked on the system. That could be why you have no heat in the car. The bleed valve incase you don't know is on the end of that small rubber pipe protruding through the bulkhead.
One other question, did we meet Brooklands a couple or three years ago? Coz I remember a GTL called Brian. Regards Brian. :cool:
 
You're welcome folks, best I can do I'm afraid. If you fix Brian in time, are you coming to Derek and Beckys' meet on Sunday next. It would be nice to meet up.:cool:
 
Gasket update
Took oil cap off,stuck my finger into rocker cover and there's a lot of oily,greasy gundge stuck to the inside.
No sign of water in oil on dip stick,oil level remains on mark.,hard to say other way round as coolant is fairly new.
To be honest I really think its the head gasket ,if so how hard are they to replace?
Would the head need skimming,read some are sods to get off,reading the Haynes bible they say you need a special socket to remove head bolts.
Open to ideas ,suggestions.:eek:
 
Hi Grant, that gunge you speak of isn't unusual, it's just a build up over the years of the splashes of oil from the rockers. The heat of the engine bakes it on. Also condensation inside a cold engine can mix with some oils to cause it to emulsify, it looks a bit like mayonnaise.
How does Brian sound, and how does he drive, any change in performance? If he has a blown head gasket you should notice a difference in one or more of these.
I've never removed a cylinder head on a 4 so I can't comment on how hard it is, but it's not rocket science I'm sure, it's such a simple engine, but I do know that you shouldn't turn the engine over after head removal as the wet liners will lift. These have to be bolted down. Hopefully someone here will post some pictures. Regards Brian.:cool:
 
Special socket only for smaller engines if you have got a friendly mot station local ask them to use emissions probe and position it OVER the expansion bottle with engine idling if it detected hydrocarbons hc then gasket need changing any doubts on corrosion or warping on head sutface take to engineering shop
 
Jambo! From small experience of my R4, l suggest to check first radiator, to make sure it clean! If problem continue bleed ur R4, if problem is chronic you have to replace cylinder head gasket...........
 
Last edited:
Our 1984 Renault 4 gtl ( AKA Brian) has wind.
He will sit ticking over and his temperature gauge doesn't come on ,when he reaches temperature his electric fan cuts in,heater works ok.
Then you take him on the open road ,5 miles approx. his temperature light comes on ,his heater doesn't blow warm air and his expansion bottle starts gurgling.Also his radiator cap was blowing off steam a little.There is no water getting into oil.
I've replaced thermostat and electric fan switch on the radiator to eliminate those faults,but I fear this may be his cylinder head gasket,any advice I would be very grateful.
97000 miles on clock,we have owned him 6 years.He's a super little car and much loved,he appeared in
'My Cool Classic' book several years ago.
Thanks in advance for any ideas anyone has.
 
Thanks guys for all your replies.
Right, I don't like being beat by this one,I once again checked for an air block in the system,I placed the expansion bottle as high as possible,opened the bleed screw,heater on etc etc.
Quite soon the water in the expansion bottle began to rise and bubble,I switched engine off and pondered my next move.
What I did find was that the heater hose that comes back from heater(One nearest alternator) was cool and certainly not hot like the other heater hose.(nearest thermostat)
So I undone the heater hose nearest thermostat and the other end of the heater hose nearest alternator and poured water through to check
there wasn't any blockages through the heater circuit.Water came through easily.
Connected pipes etc and this time both heater hoses got hot and heater was working ok.Ran car for 15 mins and no problems,electric fan
cuts in when it should and expansion bottle stayed at level and no gurgling.
Took him a 10 min run up to village,returned home,all seems fine.

I remember the other day ,when the thermostat warning light came on and started to boil,there wasn't any heat coming through heater.
Why would one heater pipe heat up and not the other,the water pump was replaced last year.
I will take car out tomorrow for a bit longer journey and monitor what happens,ran out of time this evening.
In reply to Cornish 4 regarding head gasket,car is running very well,plenty of power so maybe its not gasket.fingers crossed.
One other question,below the water bleed screw,on the engine block is a cable attached to a sensor,or is it a thermal cut out?
can't find out what it is in the Haynes manual.
Thanks again to all,hope what I've mentioned makes sense.o_O:)
 
That sounds like the engine temperature sensor (which gives a red warning light on the dash on GTL models when the engine is too hot).

A search on this forum for temperature sensor should come up with a photo.
 
That all sounds good Grant, bleeding a cooling system can be a bit problematic at times, but hopefully you've cracked it.
The sensor you speak of is the water temp one, connected to the warning light on the dash, but as its on the cylinder head it warns of high temp far too late, so it's pretty useless.
It looks like Brian lives again:)
Regards Brian.
 
Great minds, Brian ;)

Yes, we're going. We're looking forward to it. See you on Sunday :)

I drove the 4 to work this morning. He was keen to get out of the garage.
r4_petrolcap.jpeg
 
That all sounds good Grant, bleeding a cooling system can be a bit problematic at times, but hopefully you've cracked it.
The sensor you speak of is the water temp one, connected to the warning light on the dash, but as its on the cylinder head it warns of high temp far too late, so it's pretty useless.
It looks like Brian lives again:)
Regards Brian.
Hi Brian
Here's hoping ,Sandra will take him out today for a bit of a run,see what happens.
Sorry Brian,can't do Sunday,would love to have come along, until I'm full happy with 'Brian',
anyway Sandra has a time trail doing 25 miles on her bike.:eek:
From a sunny Herts take care and enjoy your day,
will keep you informed.
Cheers
Grant
 
Our 1984 Renault 4 gtl ( AKA Brian) has wind.
He will sit ticking over and his temperature gauge doesn't come on ,when he reaches temperature his electric fan cuts in,heater works ok.
Then you take him on the open road ,5 miles approx. his temperature light comes on ,his heater doesn't blow warm air and his expansion bottle starts gurgling.Also his radiator cap was blowing off steam a little.There is no water getting into oil.
I've replaced thermostat and electric fan switch on the radiator to eliminate those faults,but I fear this may be his cylinder head gasket,any advice I would be very grateful.
97000 miles on clock,we have owned him 6 years.He's a super little car and much loved,he appeared in
'My Cool Classic' book several years ago.
Thanks in advance for any ideas anyone has.
have your r4 had a new water pump over the years, if it has was it a non-Renault unit with a plastic impeller.
i ask this because these become loose and do not move round the water very well, so idle its ok but when you drive it over heats.
also i would like to say i do agree your head gasket has failed but is this due to the water pump, if you do a h/gasket you must check the water pump impeller has not failed.
but lastly i have seen this when a linner sinks or splits.
hope you found this helpfull
robbie
 
The other thing to watch out for is a stuck thermostat, but it does sound like you've finally got this linked.
 
Robbie
I think you may be right re water pump failure,I can hear a bit of a rattle coming from that area,I will isolate alternator tonight so I can rule that out,makes sense though as he is not circulating water,as you open the bleed screw its very intermittent the water that comes out.
Cheers for that,now where do I get a proper water pump,and knowing what impeller it has?:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
That all sounds good Grant, bleeding a cooling system can be a bit problematic at times, but hopefully you've cracked it.
The sensor you speak of is the water temp one, connected to the warning light on the dash, but as its on the cylinder head it warns of high temp far too late, so it's pretty useless.
It looks like Brian lives again:)
Regards Brian.
Hi Brian
Been meaning to give you an email and update for some time
Brian all fixed,it was his cylinder head gasket that was giving all the trouble,had head off
and skimmed,running sweet as now,so pleased to have him back on the road.
Hopefully we will meet up soon,would be good to catch up.
Cheers
Grant
 
Hi Grant, I'm very glad to hear you've got Brian running sweetly and behaving himself, head gasket eh, rather more work than you thought, but well worth it. Well, it had to be done, didn't it. Did the head need much work to get it flat and true? Must sit down and get an email off to you so we can all catch up properly.
Regards Brian
 
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