Hello guys,

My Brava 1.6 2001 started showing sings of overheating. Actually as I mostly drive very short distances I could not even see overheating but rather I saw water dripping below the car.
When I opened the bonnet I could see the water is boiling through the cap of the radiator. Went to the service guy and he said he checked the thermostat and the fan and allegedly the fan used to start a bit late so he fixed it (not!).

Went to the holiday in the mountains and whenever I was going uphill the themperature went up, stopped, never heard the fan was kicking in. When I was going downhill everything looked ok. It was same on the flat road, but then I came in the city and it overheated as I was crawling through the traffic.
I pulled the car off the road and stopped. The fan didnt kick in but water boiled and went out of the cap with pressure.
I waited for the engine to cool down added the water and came home without problem as traffic was lighter.

Now I am reading threads about overheating on this forum and I am not sure what to do. I will probably change the service guy, but would like to try to check some of the possible problems myself, but I am not sure:

1. How to check for air lockcs in the system and how to fix that
2. How to check the thermostat
3. How to check the fan
4. How to check the water pump
5. anything else that I can check myself

I forget to mention that there is no white foam on the oil cap or oily residues in water so I am guessing head gasket is still ok. The engine is working nicely beside overheating problem.

Sorry for the lengthy post :worship:

Zed

hey there as for "air locking" there will be a small plastic tap top left of the rad ( as if looking into the engine bay) if you run your engine with this halfway unscrewed this will allow any air to escape. If water comes straight out its fine . Sorry for the very brief descreption, im at work on my ipod ;p. Ooh must remind you to close the tap as soon as water comes out! And itll be warm too!