Post #10
stan_306gti6 wrote:All temps under control now then and the engine runs well?
Not enitrely.
As Rich mentioned above, I inspected the coolant level the next morning and realised it was bone dry. So I went to top it up just so I could drive the car over to Rich's, and as soon as I started pouring water in, it came straight back out and left a puddle right underneath
Turns out the pipe at the bottom of the rad, underneath the coolant tank had popped off.
So we managed to seal this up, top the system back up with coolant, and tried for ages bleeding the system. There seemed to be a lot of air in the system.
Rich did his best bleeding it and getting the air out, but we noticed that as soon as I picked the revs up to 1300-2000, the heaters were blowing out much hotter than they were at idle. Heaters seemed to drop in temperature quite a lot when idling, but we thought this was pretty normal.
Since then, the water and oil temps seem to have remained fairly ok. Oil temp is fine, runs at around 90 degrees once warmed up, and only increases a little bit if I'm giving it some, as expected.
As for water temp, it takes quite a long time to get any heat from blowers in the morning, and it sits at about 79-80 degrees when driving along. It does eventually get quite toasty warm after a while, and with the heaters on a lower speed. But they are certainly not as hot as I would like them to be.
However, as Rich experienced last night, if I am sitting in traffic for a little while, or going round a car park at 5mph trying to find a space (a busy car park), the water temp can work its way up to 90 degrees, and then it can quite quickly start getting up to 100-110 degrees. I have a different fan system to standard (don't use the Bitron unit) so my fans kick in at about 110 degrees. The fans kick in ok, and bring the temp down, but it does seem to get up to high temps fairly quickly when idling etc.
So we were thinking perhaps that this could be a dodgy radiator, thermostat, or maybe even an air lock still?
On the last couple of mornings since all this happened, I have noticed some idle problems on a cold start.
When starting from cold (car has been sitting overnight), especially on these really cold mornings now, it stutters really badly on idle for about 7-8 seconds, before clearing completely.
It seems to hunt a lot, and drops the revs to 500 then back up to 1000, and just stutters and hesitates quite a bit. Then after about 7 or 8 seconds, it completely settles itself into a nice idle and drives fine.
Personally, I am thinking head gasket. Something along lines of wet plugs on a cold start causing my issues to begin with.
I am hoping it isn't what I think, but that would be my guess.
But perhaps it might be worth changing my rad and thermostat, oand giving the system another bleed? Perhaps my heater matrix might need replacing to get hotter air from the blowers? And my idle issue on cold mornings could be something else?
Just seems to be way too coincidental to me that the water temp and oil temp got so high, radiator pipe popped off, and now having cold start problems!
Cheers for all the suggestions guys
ash j
Posted 27th Oct 2012 at 01:12
oh and it would be thermostat stuck shut not open 
