Club 80-90 Forums

OK some of you may have seen my earlier post where I had changed the front to back coolant hoses with stainless due to various leaks appearing and the coolant distribution junction having split. Once replaced, I noticed that the cat flap tank was filling up but not going back into the header tank.

I also noticed that there was fluid leaking from the coolant hose to the carb as the engine cooled so thought there was a pressure issue/blockage somewhere and with that pressure building up the coolant had to go somewhere so found the nearest area where it could release.

So, I thought I'd check the bleed rail again as I've cleaned it out before and found it had blocked up again (see where my finger is pointing:



I then stuck a metal coat hanger in there and it came out brown but cured the blockage:



Hopefully this will have resolved the problem for now as I've also bought a genuine header cap. In the meantime I'll be looking out for a new bleed rail.

got a bleed rail in the garage if you are interested.

You have PM Em.

I'm pretty sure that you're the type to maintain your cooling system with the correct coolant so, I wonder why it ended up blocked? A bit worrying.

Yeah it's had the correct coolant in it since I've owned it, but it had zero coolant in it when I bought it, just water and god knows how long it had been like that. The first coolant change I did showed the whole thing was blocked up. I'm wondering if it's breaking down inside or i didn't manage to flush all the crud out the first time round.

It's strange as the water was clear out of 4 of the outlets when I ran it through and the blocked one was rusty orange when I dug it out?!

Will keep an eye on it but will look at getting a plastic one to stop this sort of thing happening again.

I bought a plastic one years ago but never got around to fitting it

Every other late van I get in, that connection to the left hand head is blocked. Has no doubt caused a few cooked engines.

Here is that (~10 years ago) pic again =



It's the pipe that comes from the rear of the nearside head to the bleed rail.

I wonder how much damage this being blocked can do?
the main flow through the water jacket is stil there and there is still flow from waterjacket through each head on the other side.

Does make you wonder whether this should be part of a maintenance schedule say every 12 months as it's only a 15 minute job to disconnect the hoses and connect up to a garden hose - just attach as I did to make sure it's all flowing through.

It seems my blockage was just in the very small outlet itself rather than the main 'ring' as water was passing through as the pic shows, although I presume the flow would'nt have been up to much. It would probably explain why the two way valve on the header tank wasn't working properly and the coolant was just going into the cat flap tank and not coming back out.

I'm hoping it hasn't done any damage as I've now just got the engine running beautifully and it sounds like a sewing machine at the moment!

Luckily the fantastic Em has a plastic rail that I'm going to buy so hopefully this will resolve any future issues.

I tried removing an old rusty jubilee clip from a plastic bleed rail toninght, I think you could easily break the plastic so I cut if off.
May not be so easy in the van so I'd say stainless jubilees are worth fitting.

itchyfeet wrote:I tried removing an old rusty jubilee clip from a plastic bleed rail toninght, I think you could easily break the plastic so I cut if off.
May not be so easy in the van so I'd say stainless jubilees are worth fitting.

Cheers for the heads up Paul