kxfracer108

Im working on my fiances 03 Honda Civic.

When we got the car about a month ago I went through the fluids when we got it home to double check for problems that may have been hidden. The buy seemed honest, and the car has 190000 miles on it but the body/ undercarriage was mint, and coming from the northeast that is worth way more to me then a high mileage engine/ drive train.

So this is where I find the coolant reservoir tank is filled to the top and the radiator is low on coolant. I siphon it out of the tank and add it to the radiator and figure ill watch this. So it happens again. I burp the system, and a lot of air comes out. The guy replaced a radiator recently along with timing belt waterpump, so i figured he didnt bleed it correctly. I check the oil, and there is no coolant in it. I check the coolant, and there is no oil in it. Now that its bled, she drives it for another week. Once again tank is full, and radiator is low. I bleed the system again, a little more air... I did a compression test, and all 4 cylinders are 175PSI. That is good, so I tell her to drive it more and I will check when its not night time again. So today I grab a radiator pressure tester. I start out with pumping the system with 15 pounds of pressure. Over the 5 minutes I let it sit there, it lost .5 psi. She had to go to work so I couldnt let it sit for an hour to see if it lost more. I figure if the coolant is going into the cylinder because of a bad head gasket the car must smoke on start up. No smoke!!!! Well thats good. Now I start the car with the pump at 0PSI but still acting as the cap. The pressure slowly goes to 5 to 6 PSI. I tell her to rev it to 3000RPM for a few minutes hoping to see it spike and that would tell me head gasket. The guage went to 11 PSI, then fans kick on and the coolant system goes to 6 PSI and fans shut off. It slowly raises back to 11PSI then fans kick on and it goes back to 6PSI. I did it a few times and it kept doing that at 3000RPM but didnt fluctuate much with an idle. I replaced the cap today just to try one new thing. I will check it again in a few days to see if the expansion tank fills up again or not to see whether the cap fixed it.

I guess Im just wondering if that could still be a head gasket thats blown, or if it could be a cap issue, or a small hole in the rubber line that goes from the top of the radiator to the expansion tank that allows air in and overpressurises the system.

Any help would be appreciated, but as of now I will keep adding the coolant to the radiator and bring the tank down to max cold. The car has never overheated on us, or smoked so Ive drawn a huge blank.

Thanks in advance
Rob

jj1562

What was the outcome of this? I'm going through the exact same problem with my brothers car, 2002 civic, I'm thinking the coolant is leaking out or seeping out onto the hot head and burning off before I can see it

kxfracer108

Yea head was warped and it was burning before it would get in the coolant. Got the head machined and put new gasket in and it runs perfect

korinmana

Great to know that you fixed it up. Great work.