radiator damage 1998 V70 T5 Topic is solved

[abscate]

Correct. A compression test should be one hour of labor. Technically the car should be warmed up but that is a little. Hard to do without a radiator. You could put the two radiator hoses together with hose and fittings somehow and start it and run it until the temp swings up, then do the compression test.

A cold compression test will likely reveal any damage, though. It is possible you can have decent compression and still have head gasket damage but it's unlikely

[101]

You're saying the head gasket/compression can become damaged without any obvious, severe performance problems (for a short while), correct?

^^^ Correct.

Here's what I would do:

A compression test can be done without the radiator in place. Do that first. If that fails, then you know you at least have to remove the head.

If it passes the compression test, step two would be to have your guy look into the cylinders with a flex scope and see if there's any evidence of cylinder wall scoring. If the cylinder walls are scored, it's replacement engine time or scrap the car time.

If it passes both the compression test and the cylinder inspection, and you can have the radiator fitted and the ability to get a refund for the radiator if something shows itself afterwards, that's what I would probably do. Head gasket damage may be immediately evident or it may take a few cycles or miles to fully show itself.

Unfortunately, the odds are not on your side of having escaped at least a head gasket job.

Did the low coolant light come on while your son was driving it? That's my biggest fear - something lets loose and the indicator light doesn't come on for whatever reason.

[rspi]

Example 1: Our S70 ran fine for hundreds of miles at a time. Bad head gasket, exhaust gases getting into coolant chambers. Compression was perfect.

Example 2: The other day I went to see an 850 that lost all of it's coolant and they drove the car home. Replaced the rad, filled up the system, coolant was going into the oil and draining out of the back of the head.

These engines are very unforgiving of running out of coolant and overheating.

[enotslim]

Can the engine be warmed with no coolant in the system in order to do a warm compression check? Or would a cold check be worthwhile in this situation? Or does it matter (very much)? Compression check before deciding whether to replace the radiator seems to make sense.

Dave

[j-dawg]

Just do it cold. Any massive lack of compression will be obvious.

[MadeInJapan]

enotslim, if you haven't gathered from this threat, the thing is on our cars there isn't a head gasket compression (as an actual physical gasket)...the paint or roll on an anaerobic sealer between the head gasket and the upper engine... same sealer that is used on the cam cover.

[enotslim]

Thanks for all the info and sorry for asking questions that were already answered. I somehow got out of synch with the thread.

Dave

[abscate]

Dave, focus on your car, don't worry about your netiquette, it's fine.

Hopefull the head survived the overheat and a rad will fix it up.

[enotslim]

Parts correction. New rad is $359 plus ~$280 for new thermostat, hoses, clamps, o-rings etc. The latter would be slightly less OEM and less than half aftermarket (both from IPD) but probably not worthwhile given the overall cost. However, is replacing all hoses/clamps/thermostat reasonable if they seem fine? I know it's always safer to replace everything every time time but common sense says may not be necessary. Maybe the thermostat since I just had an overheating issue? Does overheating damage hoses?

[abscate]

I've got a 99 thermostat I'll donate if you want to save on this pass

Check part number to make sure it's the same

Nissens is fine, save money on the rad