Engine bay mysteries - coolant system related.

[jdreamer]

There should be an outlet underneath that bleed valve on the right of the pic (num 2). It was originally connected by a hose to the metal water pipe where your "new" home made bleed bolt is. Perhaps part of the plastic housing/pipe on yours bust, so they closed it with a bolt and the added a custom bleed valve as per your pic.

I *think* that the way this worked originally was the bleed valve was used to short circuit the cooling system to help warm it up & to get the trapped air to the right place, for bleeding at the front rad. I say this as I left my valve open after bleeding mine and it quickly overheated! Closed the valve and final bleed and all has been running fine for 12 months or so. i Followed the Brickyard bleed method and worked ok.

Cheers, J

[adstar22]

Ah ha.. Suddenly all makes sense!

I dont suppose anyone has any of these parts I could aquire?

I will put the appropriate posting one the wanted page!

[adstar22]

Further investigation would show that the hose with the bolt in the end should infact be attached to the "broken" and bolted "by pass valve". Which would be used for bleeding the system whilst cold! Just goes to show that these forums do contain a huge amount of information.

I'm not sure whether I need to fix this with any degree of urgency.

What is worrying me, is that as niether of these are the bleed valve, I appear to have completely missplaced the thermostat and it's housing, on which SHOULD be the bleed valve! I think??

I think I need to spend a few more minutes pondering my existance whilst staring into the engine bay!

[shepster]

As stated above your pipe with the bolt in should have been conected to the moulding with the bleed screw in it (it looks like the original early one has been replaced with a later one) because they're no longer available and very rare second hand.

The thermostat is housed in an ally casting down near the water pump, and no there was never a bleed screw on that.