Copper Substance On Radiator (Under Cap)

[DEVEN PRASAD]

Hey Everyone;

I bought a 2003 Honda Civic 1.7L – No VTEC.

Its blowing white smoke, so I am presuming it is a head gasket issue.

Upon inspection of the rad cap, on the radiator side there is a copper color substance, almost looks like copper never seize, does anyone know what this is and how it got there.

Also the rad liquid is clear, so I am going to presume the last person to work on it just filled it with water and no antifreeze.

Also does anyone happen too know the book time to do the Head Gasket on a 2003 Civic?

Regards;
Deven Prasad

Topic

[college man]

Someone may have used a mechanic in a can sealant to cure the head gasket.
No book time 🙁

[Lorrin Barth]

I remember a stop leak product that looks like copper.

[hondaguy453]

^^^That’s exactly what it is :(. They probably added it to mask the problem until they sold it. The copper is used to collect around the leak and plug it… I’m sorry…

[zero]

The labour time is probably somewhere from 5-7 hours.

Believe it or not there is good news from what you described. If your coolant (or what should be coolant) is clean and your oil is clean, by clean I mean not contaminated. You are ahead of the curve, not by much but a bit. Once oil gets into the coolant if it’s in there for any amount of time it will kill all the rubber in the system.

Please before you go searching for someone to do a head gasket for you, first take the time, effort and money to confirm that is the issue. Second, go to car-part.com and see how much a used engine will cost you. You might be surprised.

The reason I suggest an engine is because your car likely overheated at some point, which eventually lead to the head gasket failure, you head will likely need machining as the deck is probably warped beyond spec and not machining it may make the entire repair useless. The labour for an entire engine isn’t likely too much more than a head but you will save on the cost of machining. Which can be expensive. Just something to think about.

[Kirk]

As the others said, yes its a stop leak product. Its probably water because it was leaking so bad they didnt want to waste the money putting 50/50 mix coolant.

How does your oil look? Is it clean? Black? chunky? milkshakey?

I had a leak once from radiator, kept using water only because I was cheap. Fast forward 2 weeks, going up a hill and kept trying to give it more gas (I was slowing down) and poof! I shielded everyone from the sun behind me with white smoke on the freeway. Water only would cause more pressure and maybe air pockets.

I gave it to a place to sell for me, I told them what was wrong with it. They put stop leak in (same as yours, the copper kind) refilled the radiator and called it good. Im guessing whoever you got it from probably did the same thing, blew gasket, put in stop leak and sold it figuring itd last you a few weeks. (I did make sure the new owners knew why the car was only 700 dollars)

First thing I would do is add the UV dye to the radiator fluid, run it a bit and find out where the leak is coming from. You may have a blown headgasket and there might be more issues. If its coming from the headgasket that makes it pretty easy.

I dont know the time to do it =/ Ive done it before but not on that type of car and the time varies alot.

[EricTheCarGuy]

Before we start making assumptions based on a description of a visual inspection, I would suggest doing a block test to find out if indeed there is a combustion leak into the cooling system. Never assume when it comes to diagnosis. White smoke out the tail pipe is normal, especially in the colder months. As for what you found under the oil cap, ignore it for now. More info and videos on how to find a head gasket issue here. I think you’ll find that step 1 is to purge any air out of the cooling system.

http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/what-to-do-when-your-engine-overheats

Good luck and keep us posted.

[Author]

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