coolant smell after head gasket replacement.
 

ok, to make it short, i replaced every seal and gasket this winter on my freshly boosted NA. i havent done 300miles and it started to smell like coolant, so i headed back home asap,without any leak or smoke(at that time).just not taking chance. as i get to my driveway smoke start to come out of my exaust/engine bay.defenetly a head gasket.i was about 1 miles from home,i did not boost/rev over 3000rpm to get home.

keep in mind that i have 2 water temp gauge and neither of em were going past 200F. i'm using a prosport watertemp installed in the BEGI coolant reroute.


As I was removing everything to replace it I realised that 2 of my head bolt were quite easy to take off.so I painfully realised that i never should have re-use the old cylinder head bolts due to stretching and what not.. at least i learned something.


there was quite a lot of coolant that spilled up in the engine bay,all around my overflow tank.i first tought that if the head gasket blew because of my noob-ness of using old cylinder head bolts, if some boost have gone in my coolant passes, my overflow probably threw a lot of it under the hood.

So I get to the dealer, pick up 10 new bolts,washer and a head gasket.i followed Mitchell procedure, torque specs,and torque order.I changed everything started it up, everything is wonderfull, runs like a charm, refilled every fluids, and cleaned/degreased everything before installing the new stuff.

i did about 20 miles today, and the burnt coolant smell just dosen't want to get away. even my neighbor told me he could smell my car before i could get out of it. i did not had any time to do a pressurewash in the engine bay. i'm telling myself that wich there still is some coolant in my exaust/engine bay, and it's just for a while before everything cook off and stop smelling that bad, wich i fucked up something/cracked my head.


any advice? i'll have the time to do a complete wash this weekend, i'm just worying a lot, since i just dont want to change the headgasket again.

thanks for your time.

probelm solved,I washed it and went to beat the shit out of it, and no burnt coolant smell anymore.

Yeah buddy, It happens. I am glad you found out you didn't screw up things. You can never evacuate all of the coolant from the system, unless you hook hustler up to the lower radiator hose, of course. Some always ends up dripping somewhere. I am shocked it took you that little amount of time. It usually takes about a week for the coolant smell to dissipate. It is all good though, we have all worried too much over our work though. Here is an example of doubting your work, even though you have done the job a thousand times.

https://www.miataturbo.net/showthrea...=douche+pickle

i was worrying a lot, i haven't installed a super-high-boost-8ply-cometic or whatever so i was kinda stressed so i wouldn't go too far with the car,just in case i forgot something.burnt coolant smell just makes me freak out


yesterday i washed it throughoutly(trying to spell english words correctly)
and went to do a 60miles runs, and a no time did it smell coolant , I'm releived.