Club 80-90 Forums

Hi everyone
I am a newbie and have posted previously about 2 months ago about my camper (1985 1.6D watercooled Autosleeper) that had water issues on her first outing.
I had a water pipe blow which the RAC Man strapped back on, broke down again and a second RAC Man removed the Thermostat. Then broke down 2 miles further in a supernova of steam and water- towed home!

Since then (7 Weeks ago now) my local garage has had her, and what he had said is that I had just been unlucky and had a air blockage from the first pipe blowing, so he done:
New replacement water pipes
New thermostat
Radiator drained and flushed
Coolant all renewed and all airlocks removed.

This done, it still gets hot. He tells me now that it could be the head gasket, but that it is not showing the key signs for head gasket so he is confused about what to do next.

Please Please help? Can anybody suggest something that may cause her to still be getting hot, my heater does not get hot and I wonder if this has something to do with it? Also could it be the head gasket...whilst there are no visible signs and the engine is not very old? Also, having looked on Wiki I can see that the water pump ceasing could be a cause as well...

Any advice would be massively appreciated!

Thank you

heater has to be on when system is bled otherwise you get air blockages
check radiator if fully hot top to bottom when thermostat is open
check the pump actually works
do a sniff test

Hi,

Nightmare innit. Dont stress about it too much, these are old girsl who need a bit of TLC. You'll get used to that.

Theres a link on here how to bleed your T25, might be worth printing it off and giving it to the mechanic to make sure its what he did...!

http://www.brick-yard.co.uk/forum/bleed ... 29710.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good luck !

Hi Thank you for your help,
I can confirm that the radiator gets nice and hot - top to bottom, the water pump is working and it isn't the head gasket as mechanic has actually done the test and returned with a negative on carbon monoxide etc.

He bled the radiatior to the description attached etc

He now says he thinks its actually an electrical problem - that is stopping the fan from turning on? He says he has ordered a new switch and is going to have an electrician look at it and the relays?

Is that all it could be? a electrical switch failure in the fan, causing everything to overheat?

Many thanks again!

ems wrote:Is that all it could be? a electrical switch failure in the fan, causing everything to overheat?

Many thanks again!

Test the fan itself by bridging out the terminals on the plug ... thickest to the thin one(s) The thermoswitch in the rad is a common fault.

Ian

ems wrote:He now says he thinks its actually an electrical problem - that is stopping the fan from turning on? He says he has ordered a new switch and is going to have an electrician look at it and the relays?

Sorry to be brutal here, but he's clearly not the most competent of mechanics. This is really, really basic stuff that's common to every single car out there.

Hi

Having read the post - I would like to ask a few questions.

Does the van get hot when driving in normal traffic conditions?

Or is the overheating when the vehicle is only stationery / traffic delays?

I tend to agree with Adrian and Ian - the grill is easy to move and it is as simple as bridging the two wires( my switch has two) to see if the fan will run

A replacement switch is easily obtainable from suppliers and takes minutes to change and diagnose.

I can count the times my fan has cut in on my Diesel in the last 12 years, I doubt that is the cause myself.

Is there 'gloop' in the water tank? Something similar happened to me with the usual response of - could be head gasket thing but after tests came back negative it seems that system needed flushing through a a fair few times with de-glooping (very technical term) in between before every run and adding water and coolant. Just re-drained and refilled, and (touch wood) it seems ok now. Process did take months. Hope you get it sorted.