Hi all. I have been having problems with overheating. After doing searches on this site I convinced myself that I had a head gasket problem.
I have now just gone out to the car and ran it on the drive for another look. Here is what I found.
Temp comes up as normal and stops at normal place on gauge.
After a while it starts to go up and fans cut in.
Put heater on. COLD air only.
Temp gets too high and I switch off engine.
Top hose is HOT. Bottom hose is COLD! Radiator is COLD!

The above, to me, says that the coolant is not circulating.
Stuck thermostat?
Biffed water pump?

I did run the engine the other day with the belt covers off and the water pump was spinning OK.

Any ideas guys before I spend more money than I can afford on a rebiuld.

Thank you in advance for any tips. Mark.

 

Is there hot water actually IN the top hose..? If not, stuck thermostat is my guess.

If there is water in it, Sounds like your rad has a blockage of some sort or maybe a big bad air lock somewhere. Try draining and refilling very slowly with any bleed valves open and run it again. Have you had any work done on it recently...?

 

Thanks for that. At least its starting to look as though the head gaskets are fine. Anyone else?

 

Come on guys.
Car is booked in next week for head gaskets (£500 + parts). Don't want to spend this if I can get away with it.
Just your thoughts. I'm not asking you to sign a bit of paper or anything. I promise not to slag off anyones answer.

Cheers. Mark.

 

Cant understand why you think its the head gaskets that are causing the engine to overheat I would start with the less complicated (and expensive) things like checking the thermostat, and as stated earlier, refill the radiator.

 

I'm going to replace the themostat and backflush the rad in the morning. The reason I thought head gaskets, was after doing a thread search, other people with similar problems found it was head gaskets at fault.
Thank you for responding.
Cheers. Mark.

 

Mark,

Don't believe everything you read on t'internet. Too much information often just muddies the waters...!! Do the sensible basic stuff before going for worst (and most expensive!) case scenario.

Post back with your findings and all details may matter, so note everything down that you do and all the results. Do it all one step at a time so each individual item can be eliminated and the problem tracked down.

Have you had any rad or engine work done recently or topped up the water from very low or anything..? An air lock can easily cause these problems...

 

SORTED I think. It appears as though I had an air lock! Changed the thermostat and proved the water pump was pumping. Still overheating with cold rad and cold air from the interior vents. I then slowly filled up the water system by pouring in through the top hose and filled the rad befor reffiting. Hot rad. Hot air from vents. Took it for a blast down the road temp gauge rock steady on half way point. What a relief. I have canceled the rebuild for now saved me a packet. Thank you to the people who took the time to reply to my initial post. Cheers. Mark.

 

Sorted