On Fri, 2011-06-17 at 02:18 -0600, Forrest Christian wrote:
> I can't speak for the Miata, but I can vouch that a head gasket failure=20
> can cause overheating without enough symptoms to be recognizeable.   I=20
> had a pontiac with the L4 engine which is notorious for head gasket=20
> issues - and after months of trying to hunt down an overheat issue, one=20
> morning it finally did provide enough leakage into the exhaust that the=20
> very first turn over of the engine produced a nice cloud of white smoke..=
..
>=20
> Even then, it took the shop a bit to figure out that it was a leak - I=20
> think the problem was more that the exhaust gases were getting into the=20
> cooling system than the other way around.  It wasn't until they=20
> pressurized the coolant system, let it set for a while and then re-crank=
=20
> the engine and see the resulting cloud that they believed me and=20
> replaced the head gasket and make the cooling issues go away.

Easy check for that sort of thing is run the engine with the radiator
cap off and look for bubbles in the coolant, would that have caught this
issue?

TTYL

--=20
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