Search the Community

Morning All, Firstly, apologies for the long post but I felt there was a bit of history that may help. This problem started some time ago when I noticed the heater had gone cold. I knew from experience that when the water is low the heater blows cold (had a leaking radiator). I didn’t check the water level immediately but then noticed the temp gauge went up. Topped up the water; problem went….. so I thought. The same problem returned a number of weeks later (I can’t remember how long in between) i.e. the heater going cold and I topped up the water. This happened for a number of months without any change in the pattern. I had the car serviced in March 2018 and not long after it came back the orange engine light came on. I checked this out with an OBD II widget plus App. Fault P0301- Engine misfire on cylinder one. I cleared the fault but it comes back. In October I had the temp go up sharply to the Red Zone. I was able to pull straight into a garage, fill up with water, buy 6 liters of spring water and I made the 20-minute journey home. Further investigation showed that the rusting pipes of the oil cooler had developed a hole or two. I repaired this by bypassing the oil cooler with a purposed made piece of copper pipe. Over the last four to six weeks the car has definitely developed a misfire under load conditions and occasionally ‘hunts’ at tick-over. When cold, the misfire is accompanied by a 'popping' noise coming from the driver’s side of the engine bay (same side as No.1 cylinder and the radiator cap). When warm, the misfire jolts the car into a ‘rough road kind of judder’. Drove to Liverpool on 27th; 5 people on board; 404-mile round trip getting 28.8 mpg. On the flat purring, underload juddering. Recently I have changed the plug and the HT leads. The car has done approx. 155k troublish-free miles. My gut feeling is the head gasket is going/has gone or worse case, there is a crack in the block or head. Has anyone else experienced these symptoms and did the problem turn out to be the head gasket? Kind regards Austin