# Engine blew up. Headgasket?



## TDCruze (Sep 26, 2014)

If you had a low oil pressure warning, no compression and coolant in the cylinders there is lots of bad things going on. I would say the engine is most likely a boat anchor.

You could try a new head gasket as long as the head isn't warped. Probably a long shot especially at the mileage you are at.

If you want to keep the car, I would start looking for a lower mileage wrecking yard engine.


----------



## sklemetti (Dec 18, 2019)

I was thinking of putting a new head gasket in. A local salvage yard has a head for $150, $200 for both. But I don't know if that would do it and if I could fix it properly.

In the process, 2 plastic hoselines along the intake broke from brittleness and the pcv line broke too.

It's tough to give up a car and change to another after so many miles. A week ago I replaced the windshield and mirror after being hit by a deer so the door and fender have dents. A year ago I was rear ended and the repair was perfect. Every panel has dents. Yeah, time to look for another.


----------



## sklemetti (Dec 18, 2019)

I can definitely say that the timing belts will last for 250,000 miles. I started getting the replace message at 200K and it stopped showing the message at 240K. The belt is still good.


----------



## JLL (Sep 12, 2017)

sklemetti said:


> I can definitely say that the timing belts will last for 250,000 miles. I started getting the replace message at 200K and it stopped showing the message at 240K. The belt is still good.


In my opinion, your either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. 

There's no way I would trust a rubber belt or the belt tensioner for 200,000 miles in an interference engine. But that's just me.


----------



## pandrad61 (Jul 8, 2015)

If all that went on in, then your entire engine took a swig of coolant and swished it around with oil and metal all around. Personally I’d have the block torn down and fully rebuilt and hot tanked. Or run a low mile wrecked car engine.


----------



## Snipesy (Dec 7, 2015)

I’d say yeah. Some catastrophic head gasket failure.

The problem is you drove it for a long time. Coolant mixes with oil and vice versa. When oil starts coating the coolant channels and such, the engine can fry itself while the coolant still reads okay. By the time the light pops on the engine could be glowing hot and it’s just dead at that point. Everything will just be so warped.

I don’t know if the Cruze ECM monitors this or not. But newer ECMs will monitor the theoretical heat output of the engine, and if it doesn’t match up with the coolant temps, it will give a warning or CEL.


----------



## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

That...needs an entire motor.

1.8's are the most common motor in a Sonic, which would probably be easier to find than a used Cruze one.


----------



## bobl66 (Jan 30, 2021)

It has been burning coolant on almost all cylinders for quite some time.. pistons are steam cleaned....

I would throw on a new head gasket, change the oil with the cheapest you can find and give it a try... if it´s fried, a little oil and a head gasket will not ruin you

But I think it has at least one severe cracks somewhere... these modern metall head gaskets usually don´t fail anymore.. they survive even severe overheating...it will melt the pistions an seize befor the head gasket blows....


----------



## sklemetti (Dec 18, 2019)

Here are pictures of the head gasket top and bottom, the head and the cylinder block. Nothing looks obviously wrong with any of the parts. There are no gaps or burns. Between #3 and 4 there is a bend but that may be from when I pulled it off. Then the problem would be non-obvious which would involve more to fix.


----------



## Ma v e n (Oct 8, 2018)

My annotations show what is "wrong" with these parts. It's looks as though there's cylinder pair leakage air the red arrows, and the corrosion in the purple squares very clearly shows these valves are quite clean, as they've been running coolant through both cylinders


----------



## sklemetti (Dec 18, 2019)

Ma v e n said:


> My annotations show what is "wrong" with these parts. It's looks as though there's cylinder pair leakage air the red arrows, and the corrosion in the purple squares very clearly shows these valves are quite clean, as they've been running coolant through both cylinders
> View attachment 290827
> View attachment 290828


Would a new head gasket fix that alone or would the head need to be replaced or repaired? Along with making sure the cam is set right. I thought I read somewhere that overheating will mess up the ignition control module too. I'd like to verify that it is not working before replacing it.


----------



## Maqcro1 (Apr 29, 2019)

sklemetti said:


> Would a new head gasket fix that alone or would the head need to be replaced or repaired? Along with making sure the cam is set right. I thought I read somewhere that overheating will mess up the ignition control module too. I'd like to verify that it is not working before replacing it.


There is not a test for the ICM. Best solution is to buy another ICM.


----------

