Hi,
Against your advice, I decided to buy a cheap 2009 Mini Cooper Clubman base car that was misfiring to fix up. When I got it home, I found out that it needed a new cylinder head. Taking it all apart, I found that there was a bunch of dark sludge in the coolant jacket in the cylinder block. I cleaned it out and decided to replace the water pump and thermostat housing. When I replaced the thermostat, I found that the hose to and from the heater core were also clogged with the sludge. I cleaned it out with a hose. Why did this happen and is there anything that I should do to prevent this from happening again?
Thanks,
CD
You should throw an analytic eye on the 'sludge' to find out what it is...
I bet your former owner had problems with a leaking cooling system and put into it copious amounts of one of those miracle leak-stopping medicines.
I would disconnect all coolant hoses and flush the system with a water/acid and after (or before) that with a water/base mix, ending with much more clean water (plain old water as I learned recently).
Does the engine run now??
Interesting thought…
head gasket blew, and a bunch of dirty oil intruded into cooling system would be my guess
I decided to buy a cheap 2009 Mini Cooper Clubman
you are a masochist! {blackemo}:laughtertotears:
BMW was EVIL assembling those things. You need special tool for everything.
Thank you. I will try that.
I haven't put the engine back together yet. That's this weekend. I had to pause because the previous owner put in a water pump and cross threaded one of the bolts. I'm just waiting for a thread chaser to reinstall and assemble the engine.
It needs a new head, probably bc the original head gasket blew (or warped/ cracked cylinder head), then the owner put some headgasket fixer in the coolant system and it jammed everything up. So I wouldn't worry about that junk coming back if you do everything properly.
Does the block need to be resurfaced? Have you verified thats good to go before installing a new head?
