Technical fiat punto mk2 year 2000 overheating

[bra725t]

Having several problems with my fiat punto. The engine has a vibration at tick over, no noise other than a slight roughness of the tick over. Also when I switched off the engine, I was getting a high pitched whistle, sounding a lot like pressure escaping from somewhere. Then on Thursday afternoon after only covering 3 miles the temperature light came on then went out after about a minute, I got home switched off and the fan was running on for over a minute. Left the car until Saturday when I gave it a run of about 20 miles, stopped the engine and again the fan was running and the whistling noise was still going on, whistling lasts for about 10 seconds. I am suspicious that its water pump fault or a block in the pipes as when I opened the water reservoir on thursday after the warning light was on the water was cold and after about 20 seconds hot water came back up into the reservoir??
Punto is a 2000 mk2 with only 51500 on the clock bog standard Punto, no mods or upgrades

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Regards
Bra725t

 

[5abr3]

The whistle is probably the radiator pressure cap, a leak around the thermostat or pump or possibly the fan motor.

To check it is the radiator cap you need to pop the bonnet up and have a listen/look after the engine has warmed some but if the temp light has come on I would avoid doing that till coolant level has been checked (with the system cold!). If it is the radiator cap that has lost it's seal or split. Cost me about £4 for a new one for my car, you will want to top up your coolant to replace what has been lost too. Any good motorfactors should be able to help no problems on either of those 2 fronts.

Pump is harder to check and the thermostat is down right awkward, though both are possible in a similar manner to the pressure cap in proceedure

After that the only other thing i can think to test is to get the fan to run and listen for the whistling, unless it was unassociated before.