In the short time she has had the car, Chloe has said every time she pulls away or draws to a stop she can here a noise as if there is water trapped somewhere in the firewall area or door bottoms swishing around. The area beneath the windscreen wipers is clean and the drains are also clear of dirt and debris. There is no water accumulating in the door bottoms (3 door 1.2 8v 2001) as the drain holes are clear. We are worried there may be a connection with the clutch and this indicates an imminent problem. On the subject of clutch I cannot find a fluid reservoir other than the brake fluid reservoir. Are the two systems sharing the same fluid? I know the brake fluid was originally at the low level because the warning light would come on with the car's movement. In the course of maintenance I flushed the brake fluid with new DOT 4 using a pressure bleeder and the level is now fine. How does one bleed the clutch circuit?

Could the noise be described as gurgling and might it be behind the heater controls and might it be there for a few seconds after starting up. If so the coolant needs bleeding.
Clutch and brake share the same reservoir. Bleeding the clutch needs opening up at the slave cylinder.

Thanks for that suggestion. I did replace the coolant and ran the engine until the cooling fan cut in and some more, with the heater on hot and both heater bleed valve and radiator bleed valve open, the car was slightly uphill (nose up on two 6 ton axel stands) but its the sort of noise so will have a further investigation.

Old habits die hard The heater core doesn't have a tap as such. The coolant is running through it all the time. The heat selector just allows some of the cabin air to 'see' the core.
Puntos are problematic to bleed. There is probably the contents of a small library written here about it and all the various tricks and recipes to get the air out.
The one I use is to fill the rad to the neck of the expansion chamber, upend a 500ml drinks bottle of coolant on it getting as good a seal as I can, open the back screw on the heater hose and squeeze hard to blast the air out. It can take a bit of persuasion as air seems to lurk quite a distance from the bleeder. Then drop the excess with the bleeder on top of the rad.

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Hang on! Thought we agreed that was only going to be the first weekly installment with the Free empty drinks bottle.

Brendan W said:

Old habits die hard The heater core doesn't have a tap as such. The coolant is running through it all the time. The heat selector just allows some of the cabin air to 'see' the core.

Click to expand...

Pretty sure that when the heater is set to cold the water valve to the heater core inside the cabin is off. Imagine how hot it would be getting inside during summer if that thing was almost boiling hot.

Where the top bleed valve is fitted (near the temperature sensor) that same connection with all the hoses is an 'H' fitting that enables water to flow back to the engine water pump even when the heater is off.

Brendan W said:

Hang on! Thought we agreed that was only going to be the first weekly installment with the Free empty drinks bottle.

Click to expand...

every 5th customer gets original fiat drink bottle free of charge


Note: color may be picked at random

judderbar said:

Pretty sure that when the heater is set to cold the water valve to the heater core inside the cabin is off.

Click to expand...

I have done a bit of research about my claim the heater has an on off water valve. If my car has one it seems unusual as i cannot see that it is standard. There is no mention anywhere of valves associated with heater matrix online for a mk2b punto.

Also i did some testing with a thermometer and I was not convinced the outlet temperature in the engine bay was any different for hot or cold setting.

However when I have refilled the coolant I have convinced myself gurgling from the heater increases immediately the heat is switched on.

@Southsea

When I had this problem it turned out to be an airlock in the water pump. That was after a water pump change though.