My poor little mini was spitting thin white smoke (which I know is water vapor mixing with the fuel). It's had a reworked head cylinder unit and cooling system in the last two weeks. Head gasket is a graphite one which was fresh with the swap over. What could it be? or have the new parts already failed me!? My last head cylinder had a crack in it but it didn't show signs like this. It's nothing compared to some of the videos i've seen of blown head gaskets puffing out clouds. Just a steady thin immediately vanishing white puff from exhaust during drives.

How long have you let it go for? New components (headgaskets, exhausts etc.) will 'smoke up' for a while after they have been installed and heated up. After a few heat cycles be sure to re-torque your head as well.

Have you done a compression test?

Hitting just about two weeks now. Driven it maybe 5 times. Haven't done a compression test. Am going to buy the kit to do one along with a head gasket leak kit to see if there's a leak at all. If compression is low am I looking at a possible crack?

Is there compression bubbles in radiator. Another idea is to top up rad, run till warm/hot, leave overnight and in morning unplug coil wire and wind motor over for 5 secs or so. Take spark plugs out and see if any are wet with water/coolant. This should if it works, tell you whiich cylinder/s is at fault.

Sounds like a plan. Will do so tomorrow to avoid the muggy weather in Brisbane atm. Radiator isn't topped up but i'll make sure to do so asap. What's a good coolant to use by the way? Any suggestions? Also, I need a water return vac thingo for my radiator to avoid topping up every now and again. Any decent aftermarket ones online?

The radiator overflow bottle can be bought at supercheap auto. It is just a generic rectangular one which will sit down in the space between the radiator and the grill. Just make sure you get a new radiator cap to suit using the overflow tank, and a piece of metal to stop the tank moving. You can use an existing screw on the radiator, and this way the tank is out of the way. Mine hasn't moved in three years. Hope this helps.

The cap you're after will have a rubber seal under the actual top of cap. Hard to describe, so there should be 2 rubber seals in total.

I could sell you mine for .... say....fifty bucks....

Or you could make your own for a couple of $$. Get a non return vented radiator cap from Repco (or similar), a few cm of fish tank tubing and an empty 500ml brake fluid container. You can find nice little rectangular ones that sit neatly between the wiper motor and the triangular brace.

Drill a hole in the base of he neck of the bottle slightly smaller than the tube (so it makes a seal), push the tube through ther hole until one end og the tube is at the bottom of teh bottle. Attach the other end to the rad overflow tube. Put about 200ml of coolant into the bottle and screw on the cap.

This pretty much replicates the non pressurised system fitted to most modern cars.

Neat, fully effective ..and cheap.

Cheers, Ian

Dsoan.

All the above, as well as....You don't have water in ya muffler? If it's been sitting a long time, or related to why you fixed the head??

Also, some of those mono type gaskets really need a second tension down.

Cheers
Alex.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Maybe i'll get back to you on that, Ian. I'll be making a few trips back and forth from Super Cheap to get bits and bobs. Hasn't been sitting long enough for water in my exhaust i'd say. If it were oil burning, would it be a harsher blue colour? I'll be taking steps to make sure it's just water vapor from somewhere before I rule that out. Still a newbie to all this but i'm keen to learn until I can avoid going to mechanics and improve my little mini as I go!

re-check the torque on the head bolts?

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