Hi I’m trying to sort out my cooling system , first I found milkshake on top of coolent reservoir and cleaned that out , I’m seeing orange spots in the coolent also , think I got cross contamination with 2 different coolents , question is after cleaning it and basically running clean stuff now what pressure can I expect from bleed screws as running with cap off I get pressure out of back one but with cap on reservoir and up to temp and running nothing appears much to come out of either bleed screw , shouldn’t it be coming out at fair pressure , with engine running/ up to temp / bottom hose warm ? Is pump gone maybe or block in system ?

Fialfa said:

Hi I’m trying to sort out my cooling system , first I found milkshake on top of coolent reservoir and cleaned that out , I’m seeing orange spots in the coolent also , think I got cross contamination with 2 different coolents , question is after cleaning it and basically running clean stuff now what pressure can I expect from bleed screws as running with cap off I get pressure out of back one but with cap on reservoir and up to temp and running nothing appears much to come out of either bleed screw , shouldn’t it be coming out at fair pressure , with engine running/ up to temp / bottom hose warm ? Is pump gone maybe or block in system ?

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If you have just arrived at the normal half way temperature only the water in the engine block is hot and if the bottom hose is only warm there is not much pressure until the filling tube is hot. But if you are running at temperature with the cap on and you release the cap slightly the water level in the filling tube should rise a bit.

judderbar said:

If you have just arrived at the normal half way temperature only the water in the engine block is hot and if the bottom hose is only warm there is not much pressure until the filling tube is hot. But if you are running at temperature with the cap on and you release the cap slightly the water level in the filling tube should rise a bit.

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Hi yes it does rise slightly in bottle with the cap off and up to temp with bottom hose flowing , but with cap also off the bleed point at the back and rad seems reasonable but with the cap back on nothing much comes out , I seem to have air locks no matter what I do here , I think the thermostat is okay as bottom pipe heats up fine but I’m not happy with power of circulation , I suspect a lazy or clapped pump or blockages somewhere , I’m keeping this little car so I’m considering doing the head and timing kit soon ,I just need to keep her going for a while until I get around to it without boiling her , a temperature gauge in the car would have been nice

Fialfa said:

Hi yes it does rise slightly in bottle with the cap off and up to temp with bottom hose flowing , but with cap also off the bleed point at the back and rad seems reasonable but with the cap back on nothing much comes out , I seem to have air locks no matter what I do here , I think the thermostat is okay as bottom pipe heats up fine but I’m not happy with power of circulation , I suspect a lazy or clapped pump or blockages somewhere , I’m keeping this little car so I’m considering doing the head and timing kit soon ,I just need to keep her going for a while until I get around to it without boiling her , a temperature gauge in the car would have been nice

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There is only one coolant in these cars. Anything that looks like mayonaise is because oil is mixing with the coolant.


Your water pump appears to be ok. Air locks are only something to consider when you are filling the radiator and the water does not naturally move the air out of the system.


No temperature gauge? The needle moves at 50C. half way is almost 100. The fan comes on with the needle in around half way and the water a few degrees hotter. With the cap off and the fan coming on you can see the water in the filler pipe bubbling with the almost boiling water.

Your first priority is to investigate why you seem to have oil in the water. There is no natural place for that to come from unless the head gasket or something worse is happening

judderbar said:

There is only one coolant in these cars. Anything that looks like mayonaise is because oil is mixing with the coolant.


Your water pump appears to be ok. Air locks are only something to consider when you are filling the radiator and the water does not naturally move the air out of the system.


No temperature gauge? The needle moves at 50C. half way is almost 100. The fan comes on with the needle in around half way and the water a few degrees hotter. With the cap off and the fan coming on you can see the water in the filler pipe bubbling with the almost boiling water.

Your first priority is to investigate why you seem to have oil in the water. There is no natural place for that to come from unless the head gasket or something worse is happening

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I’ve had no more chocolate since I flushed
It out , I’m using pink coolent think that started all this , it was impossible to decipher the coolent in it before as it was brown and I went with it , I also had to clean out the oil sump as it was in bad order oil wise etc also when I got it , as for the temperature gauge there is no gauge or needle to follow as I don’t have a temperature gauge in this car !!! Going to flush a few times over coming days and keep on short runs until I do the work , I’m not totally convinced the head is gone , no odd smoke , ticks like a bird and no bubbles in bottle / no signs of oil since , that’s why I’m curious can other situations push a milkshake mix to top of bottle like pink and blue or yellow coolent mixing or rusty pump, previous types of leak gunk used in past ?

Fialfa said:

I’ve had no more chocolate since I flushed
It out , I’m using pink coolent think that started all this , it was impossible to decipher the coolent in it before as it was brown and I went with it , I also had to clean out the oil sump as it was in bad order oil wise etc also when I got it , as for the temperature gauge there is no gauge or needle to follow as I don’t have a temperature gauge in this car !!! Going to flush a few times over coming days and keep on short runs until I do the work , I’m not totally convinced the head is gone , no odd smoke , ticks like a bird and no bubbles in bottle / no signs of oil since , that’s why I’m curious can other situations push a milkshake mix to top of bottle like pink and blue or yellow coolent mixing or rusty pump, previous types of leak gunk used in past ?

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My guess is this stuff will come back to the coolant and you might as well do nothing now and just see what happens rather than changing many things and finding nothing

Yes I agree , I’m going to flush a few times and keep an eye on it , there is possibly the smallest of cracks somewhere in the headgasket because it’s impossible to totally eradicate the gurgling on startup . It’s very cheap to do the head and timing kit /pump etc ,just not ready to do it right now

judderbar said:

My guess is this stuff will come back to the coolant and you might as well do nothing now and just see what happens rather than changing many things and finding nothing

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Indeed it did come back and just as bad as before , so I appear to be letting oil into the coolent !!! I might try a gunk for now if there’s anything decent to hold This up until the summer

Fialfa said:

Indeed it did come back and just as bad as before , so I appear to be letting oil into the coolent !!! I might try a gunk for now if there’s anything decent to hold This up until the summer

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Oh well. With it being an 8V engine it could be worse. My 16V has a time consuming integrated head extension rather than a simple cover to get to the valve gear, and to make it worse there are no replaceable bearings for the camshafts and the whole expensive casting has to be replaced if there are problems. The extra power is nice but it is a pain the system cannot be maintained in top condition without expensive parts replacement or expensive specialist repairs.

Yes very true it’s not a real biggy , it’s a great little car , you would never know there’s anything wrong at all if you didn’t check the coolent . Would be very hard to replace it for cheap basic driving