eordieelvis

OK folks, heres my scenario... (car is a 99 Turbo Wagon)

Driving to work last week and the temp started rising and there was steam coming out from the front drivers side corner of the bonnet.I switched engine off straight away, returned to car a couple hours later,and put some water back into the radiator and drove it 3 miles to my nearest garage,during this time the temp went up to normal half-way and stayed there.
My mechanic phoned me and said there was a crack in the outer casing of the radiator so we put a new one on but this didnt fix the problem, we then put a thermostat on but this didnt work either, today he fitted a new water pump and still the problem persists. Drive it a short distance and the temperature goes sky high. Am I gonna have to fork out £££'s to sort a head gasket then?

Any advice would be massively appreciated,

prodriverules

iTrader: (52)

Alright mate EJ engines are quite notorious for air locking which cases the temp to rise very quickly as they are one of the quickest cars to rise to normal running temps ive worked with so id be trying to back fill it through the heater matrix pipe to get it out,if that fails then it could be HG failure,has your mechanic done a sniffer test?

stann01

hi mate, sorry to say i had the same problem, just bought the car, does it idle ok, go for a drive hit boost then temp to top? also does it blow out the overflow when you been for a run? another sign on mine was bubbling in the overflow too, and the bottom rad pipe is cold.
im in the middle of stripping her down to change headgaskets myself.

eordieelvis

Thanks for the replies guys, he hasn't done a sniffer test, its just my local garage so not really specialist gear. Once the car is idling the temp sits at just over half way but slowly rises towards hot, if you sit and rev it it moves up quicker. Also the water in the header tank is pressurising within minutes of start up and no heat is circulating, interior blowers still blow cold?
I am sorry am not technically minded, just relaying the details my mechanic has given me!

djandyg

iTrader: (2)

Got any oil in the water or vice versa? Is it sooty inside the expansion bottle? Any white smoke?

Would be worth getting a compression test done, and try re bleeding the cooling system by filling up via the turbo coolant pipe, squeezing all the pipes etc, could be an air lock...

eordieelvis

I think the water and oil are fine mate, no white smoke and expansion bottle seems fine. car seems to idle normally apart from being slightly high in temp. Just after a while it creeps up towards hot. My guy says he has bled the system and had an air-line through it as well as a hose to flush it. Is the compression test fairly simple? Just my local garages arent exactly brilliant

djandyg

iTrader: (2)

yes compression test is pretty straightforward as is a sniffer test tbh....if the garage isnt capable of something like this then id be inclined to take it to somewhere that knows what theyre doing tbh...

A compression test comprises of a special tube which you screw into the spark plug hole and it has a pressure gauge on the other end....you turn the engine over and record what the pressure for each cylinder is....if there is a considerable drop in pressure in any of the 4 cylinders then you know that your losing compression and prob have a leaking headgasket.

The sniffer test is a very quick and simple test (altho not always totally reliable) in which you push a special tube filled with a leak testing chemical in it over the top of the header tank, you then run the engine and if there are exhaust gases present in the coolant then it causes the chemical to change to a different colour indicating the problem.

As said in previous posts, these engines can be a bit iffy to bleed up at times though. Hopefully your garage is competent enough to do this properly tho lol, but u never know sometimes!