Head Gasket leaking?

[Tara&Paul]

Last week I had a modified cylinder head fitted to our 2002 MC and I'm very pleased with the results! We've already done a couple of hundred fun filled miles!

But today I noticed that there is "emulsified oil" in the water expansion tank and the water level was low. But there are no signs of "emulsified oil" on the inside of the oil filler cap.

So I'm thinking, could the head gasket be leaking already or was there a slight contamination of oil into the water when the original head was removed?

Any idea's anyone, I'm starting to worry!

P & T

[oldmots]

If there are no other symptoms, it was probably just some machine oil from inside the head and from lubing the head bolts and block threads prior to installing. You could flush the coolant and watch or do nothing and wait to see if anything develops.

[oldmots]

I should have noted the low coolant comment. This is common on a car such as this that has air bleed screws. This car has a tendency to get coolant lock, so the bleeds are needed. One also must turn on the ignition and turn the heater to high during refill to avoid a lock in the heater core. Changing coolant on this car requires some knowledge and care. Done haphazardly, it can take awhile for the coolant to stop dropping as the air pockets fill up with coolant. If there are any symptoms at all beyond the oil you mentioned, ie., the coolant keeps dropping, I would immediately flush the coolant and properly bleed the system, watching the open filler neck with the engine running and hot until all bubbles stop coming up in the filler neck. I have read about some of the blown head gaskets here and surmise they could be a result of improper coolant installation.