milliemoo

peeps,driving thru town today and noticed some steam/vapour exiting the front grill when stopped at the lights.
On opening the bonnet i noticed some fluid had sprayed over the plastic aux' belt cover,top of the radiator and down the side on the expansion tank and inner wing.
At first i thought it was coolant as it it light green but the texture was odd (like hydrualic fluid) and when drying it turned sticky!!Am i right in thinking it could be air-con fluid.
Where the leak seemed to have started is also where the two pipes go into the condenser although there is no immediate sign cracks or splits.

Im gonna have a look soon but just wanted to run it past you guys first.

Ps,the aircon wasnt on at the time,i changed the belt two weeks ago and its an my01 bug.Thanks guys

pps.im assuming they do have fluid in the system and not just gas lol???

wrx0211

i am a fridge engineer,sounds like a leak 2 me mate.ur a/c uses r134a refrigerant gas and the fluid would be compressor oil.

milliemoo

cheers wrx.
all i can say is boll#cks!!! just de-gassed system and removed condenser which wasnt in the best of condition anyway and ran the car for 5mins.

Saw a little trickle along the plastic top of the radiator and wiped it thinking its simply residual water but then i noticed a fracture in the plastic top.****.

new radiator it is then!!!

oh well.the aircon didnt work that great anyway

sorry wrx i didnt mean boll#cks to you but boll#cks as in ive removed the air con for nowt lol d'oh.

milliemoo

upon reading some old threads ive noticed o-e rads have a common problem in that the plastic tops split as mine has.

im also worried that it may be caused by something more severe (head gasket) but i could be just paranoid. which a few threads mention.

the car is running fine.no overheating,no oil/water mix,no air bubbles in the water.can i put the split rad down to just that?

joz8968

iTrader: (13)

The plastic tanks are fine when under 10 years old or so. They can split after this sort of time period due to the fact that they become all brittle with the heat over time.

milliemoo

cheers joz.

to be honest the plasic does look-feel quite brittle.
got new rad coming tomorrow tho! (after the i paid for it the missus said i couldve got the alloy one i saw afterall.lol)