2.5 litre petrol/Lpg turning over but won't start

[mgmark1]

Battery is still as power but when turning the key its just the engine is turning over but not firing up, AA man said sounds like there is no compression and didn.t go any further than that and just loaded it up. I fear its not going to be a good out come. So i have posted in the Techie section. But on closer inspection today one of the water pipes on the right hand side of the engine compartment has a hole, it looks like it goes to the rear heating.
Would appreciate any ideas.
Many thanks
Mark

[g8dhe]

Did the engine stop whilst travelling or was this from a cold start ?
If a cold start was there signs of coolant on the road surface ?
Any work carried out recently or for how long has it been standing, any history can help ....

[mgmark1]

It lost power on the M5 on a very hot day, did have the air conditioning on at the time, it did lose some of its coolant. It is are daily runner so doesn't stand for long periods of time.

[JulesMartin]

Do you have any warning systems in place? low coolant alarm or digital temperature gauge? if you have found a hole in a hose I'd maybe suggest that it has lost it's coolant resulting in a possible head gasket blown. I'm sure you've read here that these engines do not tolerate low coolant for any distance. I'd suggest a compression test to see if a cylinder is blowing across to the water jacket. did the patrol go any further than just a suspicion of loss of compression? did he check to see if the timing belt had snapped?

[mgmark1]

No low coolant alarm fitted, I checked the cam belt this morning and seems to be intact. The AA man just listened to the engine as I turned it over and said head gasket has gone. It didn't lose all of its coolant and the temperature gauge was at just above 3/4.

[rita]

No low coolant alarm fitted, I checked the cam belt this morning and seems to be intact. The AA man just listened to the engine as I turned it over and said head gasket has gone. It didn't lose all of its coolant and the temperature gauge was at just above 3/4.

When you checked the cam belt was it actually turning ??

[mgmark1]

Yes was turning okay.

[JulesMartin]

Could you pull out the plugs and see if any are wet? it maybe that if the head gasket has blown one or more cylinders could be pulling in water. I'd still say get a compression test done to see if any of the cylinders are below the others. I'm guessing that the engine is spinning over quicker than normal if the patrol listened to it without any further inspection. a broken or slipped belt can bend valves and result in no compression on any of the cylinders allowing it to spin over much quicker than usual. I'm not fully up on this engine to be honest. check all is working by slipping off the distributor cap and checking the rotor arm is turning when cranking the engine.

[maxi_77]

Some rambling thoughts. Many engines lose compression,,wear, sticky rings, dirty valve seats. On solution to this can be a faster spin on the starter, which can mean the battery is either on the downward slope, or it just was not really up to it in the first place, the key is just how many cranking amps it can give you.