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Blown Head Gasket bypassing Cylinders

T

Tankster

New member
Joined
Jan 22, 2016
Hello Turbobricks' users,

I have a blown head gasket situation on a Volvo 960 / V90.

It is an automatic Inline 6 Cylinder Engine.

I consulted a few auto repair shops but they were asking $3800-$5000 to fix it and one mechanic said it wasn't worth it because it would cost more than the Kelley Blue book value, one other mechanic was afraid to even do a used engine swap fearing not knowing the history of the used engine that would be swapped would come back to haunt him.

I'm not entirely knowledgeable on the functionality of car engines but just computers inside and out so if you need help in that area I could help.

I'm hoping someone that has an automotive knowledge background or experience who could comment on this.

When you have a blown head gasket the extent of damage is unknown unless you take the engine apart.

But let's say I removed the spark plugs and had someone crank the ignition on while I watched to see if any coolant or fluid flew out of the spark plug hole.

I see Cylinder 6 blowing some coolant fluid out but the rest do not.

Does this indicate only Cylinder 6 area has a leak in the head gasket or even a possible Cylinder head warp or crack?

If that's true and Cylinder 1-5 do not have any fluid coming out can you then just put back all the Spark Plugs then disable the Spark Plug Cylinder 6 Ignition Coil so it doesn't fire and just start the engine.

Would this eliminate any exhaust gases from entering the coolant reservoir if it was Cylinder 6 that had the issue with coolant leak?

Would the car operate fine on just 5 cylinders without any issues?

If there are some potential issues doing this please feel free to share as I'm trying to learn.

If Cylinders 1-5 do not have any cracked cylinders, warped cylinders, or apparent head gasket damage in those areas showing good compression would this actually make it possible to have a functional 5 cylinder car with just a horsepower drop?

If so I was also curious if the car can also be made to run on 1, 2, 3, or 4 cylinders using this method if say other cylinders happened to be damaged later on and you just wanted to be able to use the car with just the cylinders unaffected and aren't damaged.

I know these are unusual questions but coming from a computer background I've done tons of bypass methods in that area and was curious if any of what I was suggesting is possible or maybe if anyone actually on Turbobricks might have tried this idea before to get a car to work as a temporary solution until they could do a proper full head gasket on it.

I'm not expecting the car to run like before of course and I may even be okay with it if it can't drive too fast or not be able to drive on the highway and just drive locally at 35mph on roads which still gives this vehicle usefulness for the time being.

Thanks in advance. :wave:
 
You can't just bypass a cylinder in an engine. It will run, but will run like garbage, and I wouldn't give any expectation of longevity out of that engine if being run on 5 cylinders for an extended period of time. Also, if cylinder 6 is filling with coolant, the combustion process (if the cylinder is healthy enough to fire at all) will help to get the coolant out of the cylinder. You may hydrolock the engine if you shut that cylinder down. This means it will eventually fill with coolant until the engine begins a compression stroke with the cylinder full of liquid. Liquids cannot be compressed, so the engine would violently stop, resulting in damaged internals essentially killing the engine entirely.
My recommendation is to find someone willing to swap a used engine into the car judging by those estimates to fix the HG. Or you could sell it as is, which should bring at least 2,000 to spend on a relatively clean 240 :)
Then if a headgasket goes on your 240, you can have it repaired without having your balls in a vice.
 
The car will definitely run on 5 cylinders, but with less power and no where near as smooth as before. However, since you're losing coolant, the entire engine will be starved of coolant once it runs low and will continue overheating. Unfortunately it's not as simple as disabling a cylinder to fixing your problem.

Is this your only vehicle, how dependent does it need to be and how far does it take you each day? I doubt it'll go very much longer on a blown head gasket if it's puking coolant.
 
Just unplug the fuel injector for that cylinder so you don't inject the cat with raw fuel and melt it. Yeah it will run and drive on 5.
 
You're forgetting the coolant leak into Cylinder 6. It's gonna hydrolock if you shut that cylinder down. If anything, just drive it how it is if you need to drive it. But damn don't expect to get much life out of it.
 
10097750_brl_hg1_pri_larg.jpg
 
spiffy926 said:
You're forgetting the coolant leak into Cylinder 6. It's gonna hydrolock if you shut that cylinder down.
Click to expand...

hollow out a spark plug (for #6) and weld in a pipe from it to the coolant reservoir bottle. Make sure you disconnect the water pump or there will be too much pressure in the cooling system and your #3 cylinder will blow coolant too.... the dead cylinder (6) will act like a water pump.

car will run like a t5 850 and you wont know the difference unless you open the hood
 
Jack said:
hollow out a spark plug (for #6) and weld in a pipe from it to the coolant reservoir bottle. Make sure you disconnect the water pump or there will be too much pressure in the cooling system and your #3 cylinder will blow coolant too.... the dead cylinder (6) will act like a water pump.

car will run like a t5 850 and you wont know the difference unless you open the hood
Click to expand...

:lol: you're going to confuse OP.



Throw some stop leak in there, disable cylinder 6 fuel injector, pull cylinder 6 spark plug..assuming stop leak stopped your coolant leak then you'll be a ok. Keep driving.
 
You pussies. I've ran b21's on 2 running cylinders for hundreds of miles limping home.
 
Jack said:
hollow out a spark plug (for #6) and weld in a pipe from it to the coolant reservoir bottle. Make sure you disconnect the water pump or there will be too much pressure in the cooling system and your #3 cylinder will blow coolant too.... the dead cylinder (6) will act like a water pump.

car will run like a t5 850 and you wont know the difference unless you open the hood
Click to expand...

I like this, do this OP
 
Thanks for the comments posted so far.

I've been looking into it a little more as I'm trying to disable Cylinder 6 entirely and not add any fuel or add any ignition going on in the cylinder.

If you disable just the ignition coil for that cylinder from what I understand the but don't disable the fuel injector for that cylinder it will still continually spew fuel into that cylinder. If this is what would happen I would assume this fuel would then leak and mix into the coolant reservoir as well? Is this correct?

So if you disable both the ignition coil for Cylinder 6 and the fuel injector for Cylinder 6 since it is a multipoint fuel injection system so the cylinder can be isolated would this stop the the coolant reservoir from bubbling exhaust gases and prevent fuel from entering the cylinder 6 chamber making it inert?

So when the engine is running in this scenario what will actually happen within Cylinder 6? Will it just continually go up and down and continue moving like it normally would with 6 working Cylinders but with no combustion happening due to no fuel and no spark inside Cylinder 6 or will the cylinder remain stationary while the other 5 cylinders continually move in this scenario?
 
you tell me what will happen ? when you give it no spark or fuel

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4W_NRHxekaY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
Tankster said:
Thanks for the comments posted so far.

I've been looking into it a little more as I'm trying to disable Cylinder 6 entirely and not add any fuel or add any ignition going on in the cylinder.

If you disable just the ignition coil for that cylinder from what I understand the but don't disable the fuel injector for that cylinder it will still continually spew fuel into that cylinder. If this is what would happen I would assume this fuel would then leak and mix into the coolant reservoir as well? Is this correct?

So if you disable both the ignition coil for Cylinder 6 and the fuel injector for Cylinder 6 since it is a multipoint fuel injection system so the cylinder can be isolated would this stop the the coolant reservoir from bubbling exhaust gases and prevent fuel from entering the cylinder 6 chamber making it inert?

So when the engine is running in this scenario what will actually happen within Cylinder 6? Will it just continually go up and down and continue moving like it normally would with 6 working Cylinders but with no combustion happening due to no fuel and no spark inside Cylinder 6 or will the cylinder remain stationary while the other 5 cylinders continually move in this scenario?
Click to expand...

Forget this idea. It's dumb. Take away fuel and spark and you still have coolant being sucked into the cylinder.
Pour in mechanic-in-a-can and start looking for another car.

Or put an add on Craigslist. Maybe you can get a Pill popper mechanic to do it for $500

Edit: You're ****ing trolling aren't you!?:lol:
 
I was going to suggest just taking a long weekend day and putting a HG on it yourself and save $3800 off of a $4000 mechanic's bill, but after reading that last post, no. Just no.
 
Tankster said:
I'm trying to disable Cylinder 6 entirely and not add any fuel or add any ignition going on in the cylinder..... If this is what would happen I would assume this fuel would then leak and mix into the coolant reservoir as well...so the cylinder can be isolated would this stop the the coolant reservoir from bubbling exhaust gases and prevent fuel from entering the cylinder 6 chamber making it inert...will the cylinder remain stationary while the other 5 cylinders continually move in this scenario?
Click to expand...

Have someone competent do the head gasket replacement or start looking for a new car. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how internal combustion engines work, and now does not appear to be the time to learn.
 
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