Firstly, I am sorry for such a long post, but I figured I should explain the problem in as much detail as possible
I bought this car in mid April with 42k on the clock (no history), it ran perfectly & the temp gauge was steady at 87 on the run rising to 92 if stopped for any time in traffic, when the fan cut in & brought it back down. I renewed the plugs & air/pollen filters immediately & had a Gates Cam belt+tensioners+water pump done within weeks by my son & his mechanic mate at his works garage,together with new oil & filter & coolant flush & change and the Breathers removed & cleaned and all was well for a month or so until the fan relay decided to  come loose & stop the fan from cutting in at 92deg.
With this fixed, she began to show a reluctance to start in the mornings & the Emmissions light would appear at intervals. I got a replacement cam sensor from Lee (welung666) & this cured that problem, but she then began to lose water at the rate of a pint every other day, and the temperature gauge climbed into the red occassionally but dropped back again just as quickly & the lit emmissions light made a regular appearance. It had sat at a steady 87deg rising to 92 in traffic queues before all this started . There was no discernable leak anywhere, no smell of exhaust in the expansion bottle (at that time) & no sign of oil in the water or water in the oil. I checked the HBV & hoses, but they appeared fine.
Then the water loss increased to 2 pints a day & bubbles appeared in the expansion bottle together with a smell of exhaust gas & petrol and steam/water vapour from the exhaust (lots), & from beneath the bonnet by the windscreen on the offside. The clock now shows 47K, and she has been treated like a Lady. The lit emmissions light is now a fixture on the dash and my code reader shows a repeat fault of missfire on cyl no.4, the misfire is sometimes so bad it rattles my teeth, but if I restart the car it runs ok on all four for a short time?
Can you knowledgeable blokes confirm it is the HG given the above symptoms? If it is, then is there any member near me who could do the job? or failing that could anyone give me a verbal step by step HowTo so I can attempt it myself? I last did a major stripdown  more than 35 years ago on my Austin Maxi using a Haynes manual, but there isn't a manual for my car, & going to a garage is out of the question financially, as is using my son's workplace for this job unfortunately. I'm a retired Tradesman used to doing most things & not afraid to have a go, even with  some ongoing health problems which still slow me down a bit. Any Help or advice would be very gratefully received, and of course, should it come to that, I will gladly pay the OOFers going rate for any work done. Regards, Phil. 

Sounds very much like a HG problem.

I found that the only thing that could completely bring me out of denial when ours was going, was to take the sparkplugs out, shine a powerful little torch down the plug-holes, and find the crown of piston number 4 wet with coolant.

If you have any oil in the plugwells before removing plugs this could complicate things, but if they're dry, and there is (coolant) fluid on top of any of the pistons, you've found your problem, I'm afraid.

I was very nervous about DIY-ing as I'd never done one before, but it all went quite smoothly, working from Haynes.  Procedure for 2.2 must be very similar to that described for the 2.0 in Haynes, since it's just a stroked version of the same engine, basically.

Abiton wrote on 10. Dec 2009 at 16:32:


Thanks very much for this  Abiton.
I wasn't sure about the 2.0ltr haynes being suitable, but you have cleared that up, so I may give it a go myself if no-one is available to do it for me. 

tunnie wrote on 10. Dec 2009 at 17:05:



Thanks Tunnie, I think I already knew in my heart it was the HG, but hearing it from 'them what knows'
seems to soften the blow a bit (daft or what???)