External coolant leak from headgasket- safe to keep driving?

[spope]

Basically, the EF has a little trickle of coolant down the exhaust side of the block.
It is a very minor leak, it's only leaked once one me and that was on Saturday after quite a long distance.
Since I bought the car the cooling system has seemed over-pressurised to me, the top hose is unable to be squeezed after the car is warm, and the system stays pressurised for quite a while after the car cools down.
It has lost a bit of coolant once or twice on me.
The spark plugs are fine, they are a touch black from running rich, but they aren't clean and they aren't wet, suggesting coolant is not getting into the cylinders.
There is no water in the oil, and no oil in the water.
It's not overheating at all either.

My question is, how safe is it to drive with the car like this? Am I likely to experience a major style blow out of the gasket, or is it likely to just progressively get worse over time?
Main reason I ask is I really don't have time to fix the car until after christmas.
Anyone driven their car in this state before?

I was thinking I might just leave the radiator cap loose, thus preventing the pressure from building up too much. I know this will make the car run a little rich, but I can live with that. I'm not doing many ks at the moment.
The only concern I have is that the gasket may crap out completely on me, dumping all of my coolant in the middle of the road. If this is not a likely scenario, I'll keep driving it for a couple more weeks.

[holmsy]

nommic had the exact same thing. coolant coming out the gasket and going down exhaust side.
he drove it for months before fixing it.

[anton]

have you checked for any air locks etc ? run the car with rad cap off see if any bublies come out

[Commando]

An external leak shouldn't be as bad as an internal leak (internal leaks can lead to hydraulic lock... as I experienced )

Running with the cap loose/off might not be a good idea, the lack of pressure would render the coolant more susceptible to boiling/having a fountain in your engine bay.

Can you get different-rated radiator caps (ie with a weaker spring seal?)

[spope]

/me slaps myself in the head for forgetting the reason the system is pressurised.
Seriously. I was typing that post and could not figure out why the system IS pressurised.

Dave, you make a very good point. I might pay my local unfriendly repco store a visit and see if i can play with their caps.
In the meantime, I think she will be fine - extractors + no heat shield make it very easy to monitor the amount of coolant loss.

[Commando]

I know all about engine bay fountains because it's happened on both of my cars!

EB - a few years ago I was filling it with coolant & had the engine running, but I didn't have the heater on (didn't know at the time that I needed the heater running to get any air pockets out of the system). I gave her a few easy (~2000rpm) revs & WHOOSH! About 3 litres of coolant flew out of the open reservoir and killed half of mum's garden downstream of the driveway

EF - a couple of months ago when its HG was gone, my gf tried to start it and it hydro locked. I told her to take the radiator cap off, and the EF unloaded on her, she was fair shitty coz I was telling her what to do over the phone when it happened! Of course I didn't tell her to stand back while doing it, that would've spoiled the fun

[nommic]

Yeah mine was dribbling coolant visibly down the side of the block (extractors + no heat shield ftw!), but not a lot. It wouldn't happen all the time, but you would occasionally get a nice whiff of coolant from the engine bay.

Also the coolant level never dropped alarmingly. At least mine doesn't spew smoke holmsy

[holmsy]

yeh im still not 100% its the gasket. trippy peice of shit.
sometimes i wish mine was pouring coolant out the side. at least id be sure of whats wrong with it

[EdFairmontGhia]

i think my ed is just thirsty, i keep putting more and more coolant in, it just keeps dissapearing... AFAIK

[Commando]

Is it a little difficult to start Shaneos? Does it idle a little rough (like barely noticeable)? Steamy exhaust on startup?

[EdFairmontGhia]

depends which day it is? starts a treat sometimes will smoke for 5min other times its clean as a whisle, if i drive it hard, will run rough on idol, hot days will run rougher, i just figured it needs a service and a tune.... about 5000km ago.. but i'm not sure cos the speedo has stopped about 4 months ago

[Commando]

Sounds like you need to disconnect the timing chain & start the car

[Damo]

Sounds like you need to disconnect the timing chain & start the car

I really can't tell with you sometimes David.

[Commando]

It's the cheapest way to notch the pistons

I do realise that "disconnect" is a pretty inaccurate description for removing the timing chain... But I figured it added to the quote

[EdFairmontGhia]

why do i want to notch the pistons??

[spope]

^ LMAO at above exchange. Not that I know what you all are on about either.

Just did a compression test, all 6 cylinders are within a bee's Rudd of each other. Good enough for me. I'll keep driving it for a little while yet.
On the plus side, I got motivated and changed over the tensioner pulleys and the power steering pump while I was at it. Car idles sooooooo much quieter now. Sounds like a EF should, just exhaust noise.