Head gasket gone? Engine rebuilder recommendations in Melbourne?

[wai]

With alloy heads, running without coolant is likely to mean that the cylinder head has ended up distorted. They tend not to return to the same state when cooled down after an overheating episode, particularly with no coolant.

So just replacing the head gasket might not rectify things. You may have to take a skim of the cylinder head surface and then need an oversize gasket otherwise you will have a higher compression ratio.

The simple way to check for cylinder head flatness used to be to apply blue liquid (like blue ink) to the surface, let it dry and then rub it on a surface plate (precision machined flat plate) and see where there are high/low spots.

[Bug_racer]

was there ever green coolant in the engine ?

[RubAVeeDubDub]

Looks like a bit of a false alarm. I feel like a real numpty. Embarrassing!!

Managed to see inside the chamber using a torch and there's no water in sight.

I think the water that was in the plug holes was from the bottle of distilled water that I rested on the intake manifold. It was being used to flush out the heater core.

Put the plugs and leads back on, started the car and the engine sounds fine. No catastrophic noises. I'll post up some vids soon for you all to review if you don't mind

Otherwise, filled the car with 8Ls of Penrite G12++ coolant and she's seems to be running fine. I'll be taking her off the jacks and for a quick spin around the neighborhood later this afternoon.

So far so good it seems.