Technical Can someone help a girl out here?

[x_girlie_x]

Hey,

I have a major problem, i was driving my cinquecento to margate yesterday when i had steam (i thought it was smoke at first) come through the fans in my car and up the windscreen, i stopped at the road side and found that all my water had gone from its water tank. I filled it up once more to see if i could see where the leak was - but there was only a short drip. So i drove it back home but i had to keep stopping on busy roads to fill up the tank cause it kept losing all its water and the temperature was going really high. Whats happend to my poor car?

Please help me :worship:

 

[rallycinq]

mmmmmmm, sounds like your heater matrix has burst. However, the engine having overheated, has probablt blown the head gasket.

Its not good news I'm afraid.

Cheers

D

 

[x_girlie_x]

Oh no! Okay thankyou for ur help xx

 

[GhostWKD]

Completely agree with D i'm afraid, you may be lucky and the headgasket may still be in one piece, but sounds like its the heater matrix that's gone

 

[Hellcat]

Any smoke out the exhaust? mayo in the oil-filler cap?

 

[Malin Dixon]

You may be able to clamp off both heater hoses where they leave the engine bay and go towards the passenger compartment. They are about the diameter of the top of a wine bottle. On the Cinqucento they are quite visible and they are close together, one above the other.

You can clamp hoses like that with Mole grips and something to give two flat jaws.

The radiator hoses that the engine needs for its cooling are larger diameter, and they are in front of the engine, between it and the radiator.

If you clamp the hoses, and top it up with water, and if the car runs fine, then all you need is a new heater matrix. You'll be OK like that until the weather gets too cold to run without a heater.

The cooling system runs at pressure when it gets hot. If you have just topped it up, there won't be much pressure. If the heater has just started leaking, it will only have a small hole. The small hole won't leak much until the pressure builds up as it gets warm. That is why the leak is difficult to see when you have just topped it up.

 

[sexyholly]

thats exactly what happened to my sisters, atm the head is in the boot waiting to go back on hehe

cinqjames

 

[SchooweeNick]

Sorry to go off topic but it seems there are a few hot ladies that aren't posted on the ff fittest lady thread!!

 

[arc]

Sorry to go off topic but it seems there are a few hot ladies that aren't posted on the ff fittest lady thread!!

in agreement there! :wave: hello

anyway, yeah - these guys have already covered what's gone and likely to have happened.. so can't really add much.. apart from:

Heater matrix is avaible from shop4parts, product code: S4P771, list price £42.95. They are buried deep inside the dash / behind the firewall though so i think they're a bit of a pig to change.

Once that has been sorted, just see how the car runs - maybe a compression test to check the state of the headgasket, it may not have gone pop.

 

[turbo_jim]

Heater matrix is avaible from shop4parts, product code: S4P771, list price £42.95. They are buried deep inside the dash / behind the firewall though so i think they're a bit of a pig to change.

Nahhhh.... dead simple - just take the battery out and undo the screws holding the black soundproofy stuff. Its probably best to take the hoses off the matrix next - try not to get antifreeze everywhere! then theres 2 (i think) philips screws holding the matrix in the heater housing - undo these and pull it out. If its knackered (ie. leaky and rusty) you might need some pliers/big fat screwdriver to get it out.

As for paying £40 for a new one, i went to the local scrappy armed only with the standard issue fiat screwdriver from the jack in the boot and extracted one from a low mileage crash damaged cinq. 20 minutes and £5 later i had a nice shiny heater matrix!!!