How hot?

Had my temperature needle just into the last quarter today on my way down the M6 . Was really slow moving as the road was shut and diversion in place.

I did see a few other cars pulled up with bonnet open, but I think I spotted my high temperature well in time and kept the in car fan on full heat… So nice and hot in the car. I did stop the engine many times when stood to stop it going too high.

As I have never seen it so high on this Uno, when I eventually got free of the motor way, I pulled over and found I have no electric fan working in the engine bay . Fuse is in tacked so I’ll be investigating later … wonder if the spare fan off the Turbo will fit .

My question is…
anyone know how hot can the cylinder head on a 999 Fire get before it starts to warp .

Cheers,
Louie.

should be fine if you didnt go into the red

Stopping the engine isn't good for cooling engines down as it stops the waterpump spinning therefore stops the flow of water.

Matt

Didn't go into the red so YAY cheers Dave.

Cheers stealthstylz
I know it's not ideal, and that all the heat starts rising.. My thinking is that no more heat is being generated and the water inside the heater matrix is still being cooled down for the next start-up.

Had a look after Emma got home from work YAY..

Fan works when hooked direct to battery
Fan works when the connection to the temp switch is shorted out ..

I'm assuming that the temp switch in the rad has given up .

Looking on the eper, the switch is £20 odd plus a couple more for the seal

Shame the Turbo used a different (2 speed) switch as I have 2 kicking around.

The eper says its used on most Unos, old Pandas and Tipos so shouldn't be too hard to get one ..

may use one of AlexGS's relays to add an override switch .

Hi Louie,

This is your red 45 - I worked that out part way through... You won't have damaged the engine (you're much too astute for that).

You can use a 2-speed fan switch and just hook up the first speed - that should be OK. If the gauge normally sits in the middle of the scale, maybe just hook up the second speed (the normal temperature of the 45 is, I believe, a bit higher than that for the Turbo - my Turbo runs at about 1/3rd of the gauge since I replaced its thermostat with a proper Turbo one.) The second speed of the Turbo fan seems to come on at about 100 degrees on the gauge. That's OK because the system is pressurised. However it might be nice to keep it below that just in case you ever have a leak and lose pressure. Hence the suggestion of the first speed.

Yes I know this sounds like guesswork, but they are calibrated pretty close to each other and as long as the fan is on before 2/3rds of the way up the gauge, it'll work fine.

Otherwise just spring the money for the correct part, worries over. By the way, the fan already has a relay (I'm pretty certain) but I don't have any information to hand. If it doesn't, then that's why the switch has failed! The relay should be clipped to the edge of the fusebox? If there isn't a relay in the system then yes, the proper way is to add one of 'Alex's relays' installed Alfa-style at the FRONT of the car (not at the fusebox) with a decent power cable from a fuse near the battery. i.e. keep the high current wiring short and have the relay close to the thing it's actually powering. The electrical designers of the Uno were hopeless at this - the relays (if/when fitted) are always miles from where the power is needed.

I've had a fan switch fail too, but in my case it failed the other way (in my previous Alfa 164) - the fan was running most of the time since it cut in about 60 degrees.

-Alex

Got a new one feom my local motor factors £11 all in .

Fitted it and the problem is resolved .

Thanks all for the input .

Nice to hear your Uno is all sorted now Louie. Luckily for me I've never had overheating or headgasket problems in over 70K miles of 999cc Uno motoring!