Ye olde Head Gasket (8v)

[t.piwonka at ttu.edu (Robert Piwonka)]

I have a similar problem.  Oil in the coolant but mines a 16v.  I did a 
compress check and it was good 150 on all cylinders( about 3 cranks)
Has anyone had the stock oil cooler start leaking?

>'87 Scirocco 8v; 167K; head gasket w/ 23K
>
>Would like to get some thoughts on my suspicions.
>
>Been noticing a darkening of my coolant over the past
>few months.  Kind of the thing at first you disregard
>as perhaps it is just old, then start to look and say,
>"hey, that ain't right".  Poured some out and yup,
>nice gold-green-brown color and smells and is oily. 
>Soooo...
>
>Noticed too that the engine has run a bit warmer and
>the coolant reservoir is lately getting
>overpressurized (oil-coolant mixture will appear
>around base of cap threads).
>
>Those are the only symptoms.  No real drivability
>issues whatsoever.  This leads me to think, crap, the
>head might be warped.  Other possibility is the
>standard oil cooler (new gasket and cleaned out also
>about 23K ago).  I see no external leakage anywhere.
>
>So - I yanked the head.  Given that I am in an
>apartment and winter is approaching (although it has
>been a very warm fall here in Virginia), I wanted to
>get the work done JUST IN CASE.  Probably should have
>done a compression test first.  But this is a beater
>and well, so what.  
>
>Going to take the head in for checkage and see how it
>goes.  I really wanted to just get another year's
>worth of drive out of this as much of it has been
>mechanically rebuilt.  Turn around time for the head,
>should it indeed be warped, will hopefully give me
>time to get it back in and adjusted/running before the
>cold fall rains (cue Guns & Butter).  
>
>I am goint to post pics of the headgasket tomorrow as
>I don't see any damage to it, but would like people's
>observations.
>
> 
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