From: hippo on
Brad wrote:
>
> In case anyone is interested I found out what was wrong today.
>
> The head was fine, it was just the radiator.
>
> The miss that developed was caused by the overflow hose on the overflow
> bottle blowing boiling coolant straight on top if the coil.
>
> It should have been clipped to the side of the bottle. :\
>
>
>
> Brad wrote:
> > Anyone want to have a guess what might be wrong here?
> >
> > 1997 1.3l 4cyl Charade 5spd A/C with 165,000km
> >
> > It sat around with no water in the radiator for 2 months with a blown
> > motor.
> > Put a second hand engine it with new timing belt and thermostat and
> > the water pump looked good.
> >
> > Drove it about 1000km around town without any issues but a freeway
> > trip at 100kph with hills made it overheat badly. It never went over
> > the top of the gauge and I didn't think it had got so hot to hurt it
> > at the time. It did blow out a couple of litres of coolant which I
> > refilled when it cooled down.
> > Had the radiator pressure tested and it seemed fine and could see no
> > leaks. Thermostat and thermo fan seemed to be cutting in as expected.
> >
> > Spoke to the mechanic who did the engine and he said it was almost
> > definitely a partially blocked radiator and it should be fine around
> > town for a couple of weeks. (it's mates rates, after hours, so had to
> > wait for him)
> >
> > Someone here suggested you could test for a partially blocked
> > radiator by pouring water over it when hot and seeing if some parts
> > evaporate when others don't. I tried that but the radiator surface
> > never actually gets hot enough to evaporate water.
> >
> > About a week ago I ducked out late at night for a 10 minute each-way
> > trip to the 7/11. I didn't even think about the temp gauge but when I
> > pulled up home it was steaming it's head off and the temp gauge was
> > past the top. I figure it was either low on coolant when I left, or
> > using the A/C with windscreen defrost on the trip caused it.
> >
> > Next day I refilled it, drove to the local servo to warm it up, then
> > opened the radiator cap to make sure it was full and found white foam
> > bubbling out the neck.
> >
> > The car seemed to sound and run fine but on the way back home I
> > noticed a bad "miss" when I started heading up a hill in 3rd gear,
> > where 2nd would have been the right choice. It was kind of a
> > vrrrooomm-put-put-vrooom-put-vroom sort of thing. Not regular and not
> > constantly, just now and then. I 'think' I could detect a slight ping
> > when it was happening too. But that could have been my imagination or
> > just loading the thing too much at low revs possibly? It also
> > 'seemed' to have more trouble making a hill start than I recall it
> > had, but I was really looking for problems at that stage so aren't
> > 100% sure. Power seemed normal otherwise.
> >
> > Anyway, spoke to mechanic and he said that sounds like a head gasket,
> > or the head.
> >
> > I read that on the interwebs that foam can also be caused by air in
> > the system or a dieing water pump and I should raise the rear of the
> > car and let it idle for 20 minutes to clear any air out the system,
> > so did this yesterday. There was no sign of foam at all, I couldn't
> > detect any smell of exhaust fumes from the radiator neck with my
> > nose, and the only bubbles coming through were few and largish. So
> > I'm starting to think (hope) maybe the head/gasket isn't blown. The
> > only bad signs I could see were a constant drip coming from the rear
> > muffler about once every 2 seconds... although I wasn't sure this
> > wasn't just normal condensation effects. The other thing was when the
> > thermo fan cut in the engine spluttered about 300ml of coolant out
> > the open radiator for some reason and when I topped it up a small
> > amount of white foam appeared, this time with slight traces of brown
> > film on top. It seemed to wash away and that was the end of it.
> > Is it definitely a partially blocked radiator? Or could the initial
> > overheating all be due to a head issue maybe? Apart from being left
> > empty for that period there is no reason to think the radiator was
> > obviously the issue I thought.
> >
> > If the radiator is causing the overheating, could that short drive
> > when it overheated have been enough to cause heat damage to the head
> > or blow the gasket?
> >
> > Can you think of anything else that could be causing the miss
> > symptoms?
> > And do you think I'm up for head work or not?
>
>
>

Woohoo! Sometimes the happy ending can be relatively inexpensive too.
Cheers

--
Posted at www.usenet.com.au
From: Brad on
hippo wrote:
> Brad wrote:
>>
>> In case anyone is interested I found out what was wrong today.
>>
>> The head was fine, it was just the radiator.
>>
>> The miss that developed was caused by the overflow hose on the
>> overflow bottle blowing boiling coolant straight on top if the coil.
>>
>> It should have been clipped to the side of the bottle. :\
>>
>>
>
> Woohoo! Sometimes the happy ending can be relatively inexpensive too.
> Cheers

Yeah! I was very pleased :-))

--
Brad


From: The Raven on
"Brad" <optional(a)REMOVEgmail.com> wrote in message
news:4be53ff5(a)news.x-privat.org...
> In case anyone is interested I found out what was wrong today.
>
> The head was fine, it was just the radiator.
>
> The miss that developed was caused by the overflow hose on the overflow
> bottle blowing boiling coolant straight on top if the coil.
>
> It should have been clipped to the side of the bottle. :\

Good work