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From: Brad on 5 May 2010 03:17
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?

--
Brad


From: Dingo on 5 May 2010 04:08
On Wed, 5 May 2010 17:17:21 +1000, "Brad" <optional(a)REMOVEgmail.com>
wrote:

>And do you think I'm up for head work or not?

Nah, it's too easy.....
From: atec7 7 ""atec77" on 5 May 2010 05:41
Brad wrote:

>
> 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?
>
You maybe
as well as the car
charade ( shakes head)
rad is stuffed to I think strong possibility
From: George W Frost on 5 May 2010 05:58

"Brad" <optional(a)REMOVEgmail.com> wrote in message
news:4be11b95(a)news.x-privat.org...
> Anyone want to have a guess what might be wrong here?
>
> 1997 1.3l 4cyl Charade 5spd A/C with 165,000km
>
>>
> 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?
>
> --
> Brad
>

If you take any notice of some of the replies from this newsgroup,
you are certainly in line for head work
Not the car, but from your local friendly medicine man


From: Clocky on 5 May 2010 06:23
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?

Thermostat isn't opening.

> And do you think I'm up for head work or not?

Sounds like you cooked it, so that is likely.


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