Swap the radiator cap with your other 500
Go drive
Thats 2 minutes of your time vs £800
Worth a shot !
Technical 500 engine + bad advise
- Thread starter Baglady1990
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Technical 500 engine + bad advise
Swap the radiator cap with your other 500
Go drive
Thats 2 minutes of your time vs £800
Worth a shot !
OP
OP
Swap the radiator cap with your other 500
Go drive
Thats 2 minutes of your time vs £800
Worth a shot !
Funny you should say that I swapped it earlier off for a drive after film ...... like you said worth a shot
OP
OP
Funny you should say that I swapped it earlier off for a drive after film ...... like you said worth a shot
my arm after changing thermostat..... can’t say I’m not dedicated :0
OP
OP
Swap the radiator cap with your other 500
Go drive
Thats 2 minutes of your time vs £800
Worth a shot !
Went for a drive on motorway.... popped coolant again!! New engine it is then no more to be said!
Yep.. decision made..!!
Looking at the thermostat, and bearing in mind you’ve put a head gasket sealer through the engine, I’d say all that “sludge” that everyone is speculating about is actually the result of that head gasket treatment. It is possible that not only the engine but all the pipework and radiator are now also covered with the same sludge as well as the heater core.
Even with a blown head gasket you would not expect the coolant to pop its top, this is not normal behaviour. Usually coolant would get sucked into the engine, expelled though the exhaust or mixed with oil, it’s rare it would highly pressurise the coolant without there being other symptoms like your own personal cloud of steam following you.
There has been so much messing about with this engine that it may well now be toast. It may just be easier to swap it than fix it, that’s not to say it isn’t fixable it’s just it may be beyond your abilities to fix and most mechanics may not want the headache.
It might have be worth doing a compression test on the engine back in post one of these problems. But that ship has sailed.
Just bear in mind if you change the engine, you’ll still have that “gunk” (it’s doesn’t look like gunk looks like hardened deposits) in the heater and the radiator as well as all the pipe work, and if you did not completely drain the coolant, flush it and refill with fresh coolant the new thermostat is already likely to look the same as the one you took out. So even after an engine change there is no guarantee that your problems will be 100% solved.
Even with a blown head gasket you would not expect the coolant to pop its top, this is not normal behaviour. Usually coolant would get sucked into the engine, expelled though the exhaust or mixed with oil, it’s rare it would highly pressurise the coolant without there being other symptoms like your own personal cloud of steam following you.
There has been so much messing about with this engine that it may well now be toast. It may just be easier to swap it than fix it, that’s not to say it isn’t fixable it’s just it may be beyond your abilities to fix and most mechanics may not want the headache.
It might have be worth doing a compression test on the engine back in post one of these problems. But that ship has sailed.
Just bear in mind if you change the engine, you’ll still have that “gunk” (it’s doesn’t look like gunk looks like hardened deposits) in the heater and the radiator as well as all the pipe work, and if you did not completely drain the coolant, flush it and refill with fresh coolant the new thermostat is already likely to look the same as the one you took out. So even after an engine change there is no guarantee that your problems will be 100% solved.
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I was sitting on the karzi last night (too many Liquorice Allsorts... but that's not important) thinking about this one.
I'd say, judging by the state of the thermostat, that the car has been run on neat tap water rather than 50:50 coolant/water. My thermostats always look like jrkitching's... I haven't seen one quite as nasty as yours since I was a lad.
But the orange colour may not all be corrosion; It could be just be the gasket/engine block sealant, if it's been treated with some of that goo. I'm sure some brands (e.g. RadWeld?) are orangey. Apart from some bits of corrosion that will be loitering about inside the cooling channels, there may also be lumps of this goo inside the heater and the radiator... but I wouldn't chuck out the engine just for a bit of "sediment" just yet.
When I was a lad my second car (I admit, I had a Fiat 126 as a first car.. ) was a 128 3P .... <pause so you can remember/lookup what one of those looks like>... <another pause as you imagine how I was>.... and that had a lot of similar issues, to the extent that I thought "coolant" was a stodgy liquid, like tan coloured mayonnaise, until I discovered otherwise. The thermostat was like yours but it had a lot more goo in in.
The car ran on that without any problems for ages, until it finally *finally* lost its head gasket and overheated. Flushing everything out and new gasket sorted it.
So I'm not convinced your engine is toast necessarily. It runs well, it doesn't overheat, the heater works and there's no sign of anything too wierd apart from it's just a bit wierd.
Your cap is popping off so there could be gas or vapour in the radiator (which is why my money is on the head gasket) but you could/also have a blockage in the radiatore. That goo is supposed to be fed in at a hose (i.e. not through the header tank) but I wouldn't bet that someone didn't just lob it into the reservoir. I presume you're supposed to feed the stuff in at a hose because using the reservoir ends up blocking the radiatore, maybe.
My theory is, if the radiator can receive coolant but the outlet channel is partly blocked, then at normal speeds it can cope... but under some load (70mph on the motorway) the pump is pushing coolant into the radiator much quicker than it can leave.
I wonder (since 500 has a piggy-back reservoir, rather than a header tank) if the coolant is forced up the reservoir and the air at the top of the reservoir neck (under the cap) is then squeezed/pressurised until it pops the cap off.
If you have any enthusiasm left, it may be worth a punt to remove the radiatore, check the condition, flush it to buggeration and/or if it looks ropey actually even replace it.
The rest of the system/engine block could be flushed with a hose (using high pressure, to force any pieces out) and it doesn't matter (remember my old '3P) if there's signs of previous neglect (a bit of block corrosion and some pieces... since your new coolant will react to stop the corrosion and the pieces will eventually be mashed to a pulp by your water pump...)
If that doesn't do it, then it'll be 90% a head gasket or even something more severe (cracked head etc.. which is like a "really bad head gasket"). But if a rad removal and flush job could save you an un-necessary new engine then it's worth a shot.
Ralf S.
I'd say, judging by the state of the thermostat, that the car has been run on neat tap water rather than 50:50 coolant/water. My thermostats always look like jrkitching's... I haven't seen one quite as nasty as yours since I was a lad.
But the orange colour may not all be corrosion; It could be just be the gasket/engine block sealant, if it's been treated with some of that goo. I'm sure some brands (e.g. RadWeld?) are orangey. Apart from some bits of corrosion that will be loitering about inside the cooling channels, there may also be lumps of this goo inside the heater and the radiator... but I wouldn't chuck out the engine just for a bit of "sediment" just yet.
When I was a lad my second car (I admit, I had a Fiat 126 as a first car..
) was a 128 3P .... <pause so you can remember/lookup what one of those looks like>... <another pause as you imagine how I was>.... and that had a lot of similar issues, to the extent that I thought "coolant" was a stodgy liquid, like tan coloured mayonnaise, until I discovered otherwise. The thermostat was like yours but it had a lot more goo in in.The car ran on that without any problems for ages, until it finally *finally* lost its head gasket and overheated. Flushing everything out and new gasket sorted it.
So I'm not convinced your engine is toast necessarily. It runs well, it doesn't overheat, the heater works and there's no sign of anything too wierd apart from it's just a bit wierd.
Your cap is popping off so there could be gas or vapour in the radiator (which is why my money is on the head gasket) but you could/also have a blockage in the radiatore. That goo is supposed to be fed in at a hose (i.e. not through the header tank) but I wouldn't bet that someone didn't just lob it into the reservoir. I presume you're supposed to feed the stuff in at a hose because using the reservoir ends up blocking the radiatore, maybe.
My theory is, if the radiator can receive coolant but the outlet channel is partly blocked, then at normal speeds it can cope... but under some load (70mph on the motorway) the pump is pushing coolant into the radiator much quicker than it can leave.
I wonder (since 500 has a piggy-back reservoir, rather than a header tank) if the coolant is forced up the reservoir and the air at the top of the reservoir neck (under the cap) is then squeezed/pressurised until it pops the cap off.
If you have any enthusiasm left, it may be worth a punt to remove the radiatore, check the condition, flush it to buggeration and/or if it looks ropey actually even replace it.
The rest of the system/engine block could be flushed with a hose (using high pressure, to force any pieces out) and it doesn't matter (remember my old '3P) if there's signs of previous neglect (a bit of block corrosion and some pieces... since your new coolant will react to stop the corrosion and the pieces will eventually be mashed to a pulp by your water pump...
) If that doesn't do it, then it'll be 90% a head gasket or even something more severe (cracked head etc.. which is like a "really bad head gasket"). But if a rad removal and flush job could save you an un-necessary new engine then it's worth a shot.
Ralf S.
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My old Alfa 155 managed to burst the gasket between the cylinder and the coolant channel and push gas into the cooling system. It accumulated in the radiator, which prevented coolant entering the radiator.
The symptoms were, gas in the rad' (I could bleed it every day to keep it going for a while) some pressure in the header tank (occasional loss of fluid through the cap) and a dip in the engine temperature when it was getting moody (since the sender was sitting in "gas" which was cooler than the coolant, even though the engine was technically over-heating).
If I ignored the dip in temperature and didn't get out to bleed the rad', it would start to boil (steam out of the header tank). It never indicated on a sniff test.
It took a while to work out what was going on/come out of the denial stage... but head-off revealed a 2" tear in the gasket. A new gasket fixed everything.
Ralf S.
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If the car has been run on plain water for any length of time, the radiator will be scrap.
This may even have been the starting point of the car's troubles. Top up with plain water> pinhole leaks in radiator>top up with more plain water>holes get bigger>excessive coolant loss>HG failure>bodge repair using an additive>wrecked engine.
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As discussed before, get car moved to the 500 place in Lancs for suitable engine replacement, you've had the figures. Hope goes well Baglady1990.
OP
OP
Well guys I’m booked in to the 500 place in bury for an engine replacement I’ve bought a new rad too ... I’ve explained everything and they have promised to sort the mess out for me for the first time in a long time... I have some hope!
If it’s Club500Italia you are in safe hands. They really know their stuff.
On a related lighter note I had a call from a lady this morning who I’ve helped out with her broken door handle before saying she “boiled over” yesterday. Car told her to stop but she drove about 3 more miles to get home [emoji51][emoji51][emoji51].
I went through it on the phone what it could be and said “have you checked your oil?” She has had the car a year and never checked it. I told her to do so. It didn’t register on the dipstick so she put a litre in. I told her to put more in and recheck the dipstick and that was most likely why she had boiled over. In the year she has had the car she’s never raised the bonnet. [emoji30]
On a related lighter note I had a call from a lady this morning who I’ve helped out with her broken door handle before saying she “boiled over” yesterday. Car told her to stop but she drove about 3 more miles to get home [emoji51][emoji51][emoji51].
I went through it on the phone what it could be and said “have you checked your oil?” She has had the car a year and never checked it. I told her to do so. It didn’t register on the dipstick so she put a litre in. I told her to put more in and recheck the dipstick and that was most likely why she had boiled over. In the year she has had the car she’s never raised the bonnet. [emoji30]
I'm now wondering what state the heater matrix will be in . Running the car on plain water could have weakened or even perforated it. Also if any residual sludge gets back into the new radiator and replacement engine, it won't be good. Easy enough to flush through the pipework, but will that be enough? Replacing the matrix is a nightmare job, since the heater box is just about the first thing to go into the shell when the car is built.
. Running the car on plain water could have weakened or even perforated it. Also if any residual sludge gets back into the new radiator and replacement engine, it won't be good. Easy enough to flush through the pipework, but will that be enough? Replacing the matrix is a nightmare job, since the heater box is just about the first thing to go into the shell when the car is built.
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I'm now wondering what state the heater matrix will be in
Our heater matrix failed a few years ago, the water that came out wasn't bad, but when I then flushed it loads of "rusty coloured water" came out, though it failed where the plastic body attached.
I would bet it wasn't plain water as it would have frozen at some point so probably never changed since being made?
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She really needs to check the water level too or just have it properly serviced telling whoever whats just happened, then do some basic checks every month, guess she never used the screen wash either?
OP
OP
That’s the exact place typecastboy they sorted me an engine I’m taking a new rad ect .. they just broken a Gucci like mine as they have all interior on eBay! Fewer and fewer left every day! That poor lady!!! I could empathise however I’ve been under the bonnet every day since I got my Gucci .... and still it happened to me!
OP
OP
I'm now wondering what state the heater matrix will be in
I guess I’ll find out!! I flushed it a few weeks back I expected it to be bad but apart from the odd black speck possibly bugs the water was very clean flushed it for about 15 minutes then reversed the pipes I would have thought the sludge would have appeared then .. at least some! Anyhow will have to see on the day!
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Hi Everyone
Sorry im coming to this late on.
I have noticed over the years that many 1.2 puntos/panda cars blow head gaskets twice, the first time it gets repaired because the head gasket has gone, the second time it gets repaired the second repairer looks at why its blown again.
often stone chips get into the lower section of the bumper and brakes away the small aluminium fins off the bottom 2 or 3 inches of the radiator, this causes the radiator to become less effective and so the car begins to over heat slightly causing head gasket blow no1. repair is done and your on your way with fresh coolant, later on symptoms begin to reappear and a build up to head gasket no 2, this time the mechanic notices the radiator is missing fins off the bottom half. head gasket repair is done with new radiator and all is good.
This is great if you can do all the work your self because its the labour that is expensive.
I suspect from reading through quickly. the bottom of your radiator is loosing its fins giving the engine less effective cooling making it run a little hotter maybe making it loose a bit of water, your water pump has probably never been changed before your ownership and now you have done it with a cam belt you have protected yourself, in your position i would check the radiator bottom by looking through the grills in the lower half of your bumper and if you see the fins are missing then look into having the radiator changed this will give you much better cooling and will reduce the chance of head gasket failure, read earlier about letting the system self bleed with the cap off for about 20 mins before putting the cap on to then bleed the heater hose and then top up to the levels rqd.
I hope this helps
Tim
Sorry im coming to this late on.
I have noticed over the years that many 1.2 puntos/panda cars blow head gaskets twice, the first time it gets repaired because the head gasket has gone, the second time it gets repaired the second repairer looks at why its blown again.
often stone chips get into the lower section of the bumper and brakes away the small aluminium fins off the bottom 2 or 3 inches of the radiator, this causes the radiator to become less effective and so the car begins to over heat slightly causing head gasket blow no1. repair is done and your on your way with fresh coolant, later on symptoms begin to reappear and a build up to head gasket no 2, this time the mechanic notices the radiator is missing fins off the bottom half. head gasket repair is done with new radiator and all is good.
This is great if you can do all the work your self because its the labour that is expensive.
I suspect from reading through quickly. the bottom of your radiator is loosing its fins giving the engine less effective cooling making it run a little hotter maybe making it loose a bit of water, your water pump has probably never been changed before your ownership and now you have done it with a cam belt you have protected yourself, in your position i would check the radiator bottom by looking through the grills in the lower half of your bumper and if you see the fins are missing then look into having the radiator changed this will give you much better cooling and will reduce the chance of head gasket failure, read earlier about letting the system self bleed with the cap off for about 20 mins before putting the cap on to then bleed the heater hose and then top up to the levels rqd.
I hope this helps
Tim
OP
OP
I’m beyond that now Tim! My engine for a better word is screwed!! Steel seal ect .... I’m having everything replaced!
