Reply To: Exhausted!

Many thanks for the responses.
A very clever hint on retaining the liners..never thought of that one! The car has always had a liking for losing water but we shall see in the next couple of weeks on a planned trip with our French club pals.
I wasn’t aware that you could obtain a kit for testing for combustion gases in the coolant and that seems a really useful check. I see Amazon do a kit for about 30 pounds and I shall order one. I’m pretty sure that the vapour is not due to water in the exhaust system as it can happen any time even after a long drive.
The liners remain the main suspect but again,as the moisture softens the carbon in two cylinders,this may not be the case. The other possibility is a warped block, heaven forbid!
Many thanks again and I shall update in the future.
ps We were thrilled to see our car in the photos on the club site. It’s the French reg one in the field taken at the tour De Dordogne in 2015 which we helped organise. The car was fine then!