Ford Fiesta 2003 1.4 Tdci - Oil/fumes/pressure In Expansion Tank

Hi all,

First off, sorry for the essay!

Secondly, I just signed up to the forums in hope of finding out what exactly is wrong with my car! Been taking a look around and there's quite a lot of handy info so looks like I'll be sticking around.

Right, so here's some backstory:

About a month and a half ago, I went out in the car to Tesco to get some bits. On the way there - all was good. On the way back, however, I noticed the temperature of the engine had risen drastically and that the light had come on to indicate overheating. I slowed down to a more relaxed pace and proceeded to get the car home (About 2 miles). Once I had gotten the car back I took a look on the expansion tank... Empty... Filled it back up to the max and continued on as usual.

Two weeks later, the same overheating issue occured. Had a look in the expansion tank and once again it was empty. Took a look under the oil filler cap, no white gunk, had a look on the dipstick, no white gunk. Hmm... Filled it back up again and drove it around a little bit, once home I left it alone until the morning where I went to check the tank to see if it had leaked out on the ground or what was going on. Nothing on the ground at all, so I assumed it was all good. Now bear in mind this is about 12 hours if not longer after driving previous, but I unscrewed the filler cap and the pressure in the tank was insane for the distance it had been and considering the engine was cool.

I began to wonder what was going on. Surely couldn't be the head gasket due to no white gunk in the oil at all... Got a couple of people I know to take a look and they pinpointed it down to actually being the head gasket. Great. So, got to work on swapping out the head gasket for a new one.

Stripped out parts and cleaned them up as we went. Timing was all locked off and everything was done as listed in the Haynes manual (Had to get one because damn, the head in this car is a nightmare to get to), once we finally got to the head gasket, I inspected it myself and noticed a small crack across one of the oil gallery holes, this made me certain that I was dealing with a head gasket fault here and that putting the new one on would solve the issues. So we did just that. Put the car back together, changing the water pump, timing belt, timing belt tensioner, auxiliary drive belt, because as the car was apart we may as well do it!

After it was all together we also changed the oil filter and oil... Now this bit I'm kicking myself for because I should have known, but there we go. Started filling up the oil and it wouldn't appear on the dipstick whatsoever. So kept going. Haynes manual said 3.8 litre oil capacity, as the bottle was getting lower and lower I thought something can't be right here... But alas, we eventually got oil on the dipstick and presumed it just had to settle.

Took the car out for a drive to find out it had a massive loss in power. As I'm covered by the AA for breakdown repair cover and suspected a turbo fault I thought I'd try my luck and get the AA out to see what they thought. Only once they came out did we find out the end of the dipstick was actually broken off (Doh) and that we had put too much oil in.

Released about a litre of oil and ordered a new dipstick, finally feeling at rest after the car was back on the road and the power was starting to come back after the excess oil had started burning off.

Managed to get about 70 miles of driving done before we noticed fumes in the expansion tank again, pressure in the tank again, but this time also oil?

I've done a bit of digging and found the oil could be due to a faulty oil cooler, which isn't the end of the world. But the fumes and pressure are were I'm getting concerned now. Suspecting a cracked head, although when we took the head out and observed it, it all looked okay...

Once again, sorry for the essay!

tl;dr: Oil, fumes and pressure in expansion tank, what's wrong?

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Kyle