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| bondy99 |
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Age: 65 Posts: 1128 Joined: 13th Sep 2010 Ride: Ford Falcon AU 2000 Series II Location: Crestmead |
Hi all,
I am puzzled. My AU Series II has had a new radiator installed and new upper and lower radiator hose. After adding new coolant to the large plastic bubble container, all seemed well, no noticebale loss of coolant, drove for about 4 days and to my suprise I had very little coolant left in that bubble container. Hmmmm, me looks for a leak but cant find one, except for the overflow tube under pressure. I topped the bubble up again, maybe 4 or 5 days went and again the coolant is down below minimum. Am I missing something? I cannot find any leaking pipes or hoses. Has anyone else experienced this problem or may know the possible cause of this? Any help on this is welcome. Cheers, Peter |
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| frd906n |
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umm this should be in the 6 cylinder section
i had the same thing in my au when i did the engine swap, was cuased by a air lock in the system, took couple of days for it to clear, also it takes around 14 litres to fill it properly
_________________ Daily Driver, Series 1 Au Forte Quote: Posted by Xcabbi, Does it slap or rattle? Rattle is more to do with timing chains and tensioners. Slap is more to do with lifters, rings, bearings or GENIII boat anchors
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| bondy99 |
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Age: 65 Posts: 1128 Joined: 13th Sep 2010 Ride: Ford Falcon AU 2000 Series II Location: Crestmead |
My apologies if this is in the wrong section. maybe the mods might be kind enough to move it to the correct section.
Yeah thanks for telling me about the airlock. Good job I'm not driving longer distances. The vehicle has driven over 150km since having the new radiator installed when I've discovered this problem. |
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| frd906n |
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have you used the heater latly, thats a cause as well after a collant change
_________________ Daily Driver, Series 1 Au Forte Quote: Posted by Xcabbi, Does it slap or rattle? Rattle is more to do with timing chains and tensioners. Slap is more to do with lifters, rings, bearings or GENIII boat anchors
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| Teknoslasher |
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Age: 38 Posts: 138 Joined: 13th Sep 2010 Ride: '96 EL Ford Fairmonth Ghia. Location: Toowoomba |
bondy99 wrote: Hmmmm, me looks for a leak but cant find one, except for the overflow tube under pressure. Is there any sign of cracking in the water cache tank at all -- normally where the top half meet the bottom, the seal sometimes split and crack.
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| bondy99 |
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Age: 65 Posts: 1128 Joined: 13th Sep 2010 Ride: Ford Falcon AU 2000 Series II Location: Crestmead |
Hello again, No, have not used the heater of late and have not noticed any cracking of that plastic bottle where is has maximum and minimum lines.
I could not see any hairline fractures. I have noticed coolant on the ground coming out of the overflow hose from the plastic bottle. I assume that is nomal or is it? Radiator cap might be susc but I dont know if it's good either. |
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| frd906n |
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is it comming out the over flow pipe or is it leaking from the bottom of the tank where the main hose goes in
_________________ Daily Driver, Series 1 Au Forte Quote: Posted by Xcabbi, Does it slap or rattle? Rattle is more to do with timing chains and tensioners. Slap is more to do with lifters, rings, bearings or GENIII boat anchors
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| Teknoslasher |
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Age: 38 Posts: 138 Joined: 13th Sep 2010 Ride: '96 EL Ford Fairmonth Ghia. Location: Toowoomba |
bondy99 wrote: I could not see any hairline fractures. I have noticed coolant on the ground coming out of the overflow hose from the plastic bottle. I assume that is nomal or is it? I noticed with mine that I had very slight cracks in mine that I could not tell of for quite a while as it was where two different plastic parts come together (the top part with the bubble on it and the bottom part with the cells in it). Only noticed after it eventually started leaving water marks on my main radiator pipe. I ended up sealing the whole thing again (roughly & dodgy looks-wise) with epoxy. As for the coolant on the ground, that can be a normal thing to happen. It just depends on how full your cache was previously.
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| phongus |
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Does coolant come out of the overflow bottle all the time after a drive? If so, then no, it isn't normal. Mine only overflows after I have overfilled the coolant system.
Anyways, could be a sign of the radiator cap not holding pressure. Buy a new one with the same PSI rating and see how that goes.
_________________ phongus = Post whore 2006 |
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| bondy99 |
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Age: 65 Posts: 1128 Joined: 13th Sep 2010 Ride: Ford Falcon AU 2000 Series II Location: Crestmead |
frd906n,
Yes, it is coming from the overflow pipe, there is a telltale sign on the chassis which I traced back to the overflow. Tekhnoslasher, Yeah on two occassions I have filled it past the maximum level as its hard to see the line and words. I can understand if it's overfull and under pressure any excess will be sent via the overflow. I have checked it 2 days after driving relatively short distances i.e. 100km and noticed the coolant level has hardly dropped but after a few days more especially caught in heavy traffic then yes it has dropped. Thats when I notice coolant on the concrete floor coming from the overflow pipe at the top. There is no water in the crankshaft and no bubbles seen in the tank when the engine is running. I was informed the engine was rebuilt 14 months ago. I installed the new radiator about 2 weeks ago. Radiators with plastic tanks....bloody throw away society. |
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| frd906n |
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Mine would only ever leak out the over flow if the car engine was hot from a long drive towing a tralier,
_________________ Daily Driver, Series 1 Au Forte Quote: Posted by Xcabbi, Does it slap or rattle? Rattle is more to do with timing chains and tensioners. Slap is more to do with lifters, rings, bearings or GENIII boat anchors
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| bondy99 |
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Age: 65 Posts: 1128 Joined: 13th Sep 2010 Ride: Ford Falcon AU 2000 Series II Location: Crestmead |
phongus
Yeah you might be onto something there, I'll have a look next time, but yep will buy another radiator cap today. I was looking at the radiator cap two days ago and pondered about it, but could not tell if it was still good or not. Come to think of it. there was some crusty crap on top of it in the centre. |
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| TimmyA |
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Only other thing I can think of that hasn't been listed...
Is the crappy factory steel welsh plugs... From memory there is 5 is on each side of the motor and 1 in the rear... Eventually these corrode and being to leak... If you have pacemaker (or similar) headers you can see the exhaust side ones easily, but if you have factory manifold it will be a little more difficult... Intake ones will be hard to see and rear on impossible to see... I have changed all mine (bar the rear one because thats a motor out job) to brass ones because brass is inert and doesn't react to anything... And lastly, although uncommon, it is possible you've done a head gasket and its leaking into a cylinder... Way to check this is put compressed air into the spark plug hole and put compression on each cylinder one at a time and see if bubbles come up in your header tank... This requires an adaptor from an air hose to spark plug thread though... Cheers, Tim
_________________ 93 Red ED 5spd Manual Build Thread |
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| Teknoslasher |
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Age: 38 Posts: 138 Joined: 13th Sep 2010 Ride: '96 EL Ford Fairmonth Ghia. Location: Toowoomba |
Wouldn't be an air bubble in the system then, would it? I know when I did my engine in my old EF I rooted my head block, water was leaking straight into it because of an air bubble. When I found out it was way too late, but how I found out was I'd have the car running and then put more coolant in to it. As it was full, it literally bubbled in the cache.
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| TimmyA |
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I thought the idea of falcons having the higher, separate head tank was to create a self bleeding system and make air bubbles impossible... your thermostat has a tiny bleed hole, which allows air in the block/ head to get into the top thermostat housing and under pressure from the pump push it out that small hose in the top thermostat housing and the air runs uphill back into the head tank (because air sits on top of water, so it runs uphill so to speak) and hence all air is expelled under normal running...
Commodore needs to be bled, and have the bleeding screw on top the highest point (upper thermostat housing) to bleed the air out, falcons have the header tank mounted higher than the thermostat housings so the air runs back up to it... I have never manually bled a falcon (don't know how you'd do it without a bleed screw) and have never had an air lock... So can you explain to me how it is possible to get an air lock? Because I can't get my head around it at the moment...
_________________ 93 Red ED 5spd Manual Build Thread |
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