Club 80-90 Forums

Long time since I've been round these parts...Long story short as we've just returned home to leave the van for the weekend to grab the car and tent instead

Before - Our van has always run well - temp gauge had a tendency to go AWOL every now and again, but worked most of the time, sat happily in the middle over the light. Light only flashed a few when you turned on the ignition.

Couple of weeks ago - van goes in for big (i.e. expensive service), one thing they said they'd do was flush and replace the coolant. Picked it one morning - within two to three miles the red light started flashing (temp gauge not moved - sat on 0). Nursed it home, rang garage, they came and looked, said something about wiring and sensor, they took it back in and said they'd sorted it, returned it last Tuesday.

Today - first day I've had chance to drive it, family trip away for the night to coast. Iginition on, light flashes, goes off, within a few seconds starts flashing again. Set off anyway, see what happens, within half a mile, temp gauge starts climbing and doesn't stop till it's all the way to the top. Panic, turn round, nurse it home.

Engine cover off - feel heat radiating off it straight away (we've gone max 2 miles), main coolant tank (dalek) is hot feels pressurised when I try the lid, didn't crack it too far but hisses like a bottle of pop when you open it and coolant wanting to come out. Can't get lid off letter box tank, but can't see a coolant level so it's either full to the brim or empty - going to try again to get lid off now, but family want to get to the beach!

Any ideas for when I ring the garage on Monday? I'm not amazingly technically inclined, alot of this may be normal, but we've just paid a lot of money for this service and it's come back in a seeming worse state than it went.

Hopefully have broadband at campsite so will try and respond later if there's any questions. Cheers.

Update, managed to get letter box tank cover off - bone dry inside - have put water in to max line, from what I can tell it's already started going down (haven't started engine) - no drips or leaks coming out of the bottom of it). Coolant level in main tank has dropped a little as the engine has cooled (can clearly see top of coolant level now, couldn't before).

Will do a bit more searching and reading when we get pitched, but any suggestions gratefully received.

Sounds like they didnt bleed the coolant system.

Agreed... sounds like they didn't bleed the coolant system. It takes loads more coolant than you'd imagine too. If your 1.6 is the JX there's a great thread by Baxter on the brickwerks forum for this. If it is the coolant system that is the problem, If you follow it to the letter you should be fine.


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they deffo didn't bleed the system, best method I find is to remove front top grille, remove bleed screw from top of radiator, jack the back of the van up until the header tank filler (the one with the blue pressure cap) is higher than the bleed screw, its a couple of feet of the ground, fill at back until water comes out the front, jack down slowly keep topping water, should be all good

No need to jack the rear up to bleed the system.

multisi wrote:No need to jack the rear up to bleed the system.

Eliminates any possibly of problems, no big deal to do it either

Cheers all. I remember doing a bit of research into bleeding the system a couple of years back when I was looking at replacing the coolant but didn't change it in the end. Will have it out with the garage tomorrow and see where we get on.

Camping was good though, even if we did accidently take the van awning instead of the tent.

Agree with multsi and pw2904.
I recently did an overhaul on my coolant system and the thread by baxter is an excellent guide to follow.
A couple of similar issues happened to me after completed the bleeding stage.
1- The top up tank dropped in level a couple of times before it stabilised.
2- Coolant level in main tank also dropped a little, so removed cap and brim filled again.

All this happened within the first week but it has been fine since. If the garage dont rectify it for you, you should be able to put it right yourself in a couple of hours.
Good luck.

Cheers again - Spoken to the garage and they're sending out a recovery truck to haul it back in tomorrow. We'll see where we go from there.

It's only ever been on the back of a recovery truck twice, both times seemingly a fault from service.

Just out of interest, is there anything important to look out for if we've had to run hot for a couple of miles? (the van's dropped more oil on the drive than usual since our short jaunt on Saturday) I want to make sure there aren't anymore expensive surprises coming out of this...

Sorry to drag this one up again but looks like more problems...

Spoke to garage this afternoon, lots of talk about faulty thermostats, bad wiring etc... (i.e. electrical, not over heating) when I mentioned the fact that the expansion tank was bone dry I was told that they don't have to have anything in them, they're just there as part of the pressurised system to take excess (is this rubbish? Why the max / min line otherwise)?

Anyway, van delivered back this afternoon, just been out to look it over - expansion tank now has decently amount of clean liquid in it, main coolant tank however looks oily and has what looks like a white-ish oily paste around the inside of the neck under the dalek cap (they told me they'd flushed the system again today). I don't know much but I do know that doesn't sound particularly good. I need an independent mechanic to have a look at this and give me their thoughts, but would welcome any wisdom from the collective oracle if there is any.

Cheers

Mine is full up to the top, pretty sure its a level sensor at the top, so its going to have to be full past the probes.

I would be thinking either a bit of scum has been flushed through or a head gasket, do you have any white smoke does your oil still look black?

Also worth just visually checking you are not leaking from anywhere.

If everything is looking ok, just fill it up again and try again.

Cheers - I'llo give it a short start up on the driveway over the weekend to check for smoke and will look at the oil. Coolant should be max 5 miles old, so whatever has happened has happened quickly.

I've also got another mechanic lined up on recommendation of another local owner - he's going to come out and give us a second opinion next week - it's not going back to the original garage at the moment as I have no confidence they know what they're doing or that I'm being given the full picture.

Good luck

budda666 wrote:Sorry to drag this one up again but looks like more problems...

Spoke to garage this afternoon, lots of talk about faulty thermostats, bad wiring etc... (i.e. electrical, not over heating) when I mentioned the fact that the expansion tank was bone dry I was told that they don't have to have anything in them, they're just there as part of the pressurised system to take excess (is this rubbish? Why the max / min line otherwise)?

Cheers

They seem like idiots! I wouldn't take the van back to them either.
It should have water in. Water is pushed out from the engine as it heats up and expands into the tank and drawn back as the engine cools.