Head Gasket Failure? 1.7 ES (sorry longish)

[1st480]

Whilst the engine currently produces decent power, reasonable economy and runs sweetly enough there are a few issues that seem to be suggesting Head Gasket Failure to me...

Firstly, there seems to be a lot of steam from the exhaust, (and when idled on the spot upto temperature there is an oily patch where the drips come out of the pipe) and the coolant levels seem to plummet. I gave the car a service changing the oil and filter (oil was rediculously thin but not frothed suspect the previous owner a young lad had put what he thought was performance oil in eg 5w or similar...they had put the P/S and brake resevoir caps on the wrong resevoirs) There was no trace of mayonaise on the oil cap and the spark plugs were replaced , the ones that came out were about the right colour. (No oil deposits etc) Also I have changed the coolant, giving the system a flush through with a hose both ways and replacing mashed up lower rad hose clip.

Now the coolant before-hand seemed to drop about a header tank full every 800 miles however yesterday the head bleed screw for the coolant system popped clean off (I managed to get the threaded part out and replace with a bolt) I could see that the system still has rust/crud in there from the colour in the header tank. I bled the system and topped it up noticing that when the fan cut in a lot more bubbles of a brownish colour came through the header. I will be keeping an eye on the coolant levels over the next few weeks to confirm coolant loss. I thought the coolant smelled funny possibly oily but others have said it just smells of coolant. I know that the aux pump is of the quiet variety ie seized /not working.

The 480 is my daily driver, so is there anything else I can do to check whether the head gasket is to blame without taking the head off or spending a fortune for a garage to do a leak down test etc. Would anyone advise as to trying a ceramic block treatment through the coolant system that's meant to seal heads and gaskets(I've had good results before but on different cars) Finally, if the HG is to blame where's the best place to buy one from and how much should I be looking at paying? Do they come with new bolts in the sets or is it advisable to buy new ones as well?

Any suggestions for what else it might be or how to procede are greatly welcomed,

Leon

[aibast]

if it was a turbo, it might have been that, but if its the HG, then just change it out. It isn't a lot of work to do by yourself. Just takes know-how and a place to do it in.

[1st480]

Are there any other jobs worth doing at the same time the HG is done?

[kitt]

yea do all the seals - like rocker cover, and think some inlet manifold stuff can be changed too - you can grab a head gasket kit off ebay - but not sure what it exactly contains

[Yossarian]

An almost dead giveaway of a blown head gasket are bubbles of air appearing in the coolant tank. That's how my 825 was diagnosed. Also a loss in power and sporadic power delivery.