air in coolant - help

19th February 2019, 21:43

My Saxo Furio has been sitting for a year on the drive without use. In that time it seems to have lost all of the water, but I am unsure where it was leaking from. Yesterday I filled it with water and thoroughly bled the system. I was really careful to do this, following the bleeding guide precisely. I am pretty sure all air was successfully expelled from the system. After I did this it appeared to run well. I even ran it for a few hours at various revs.

Today I started the car up again, but now I can hear water sloshing when inside car. My experience with this problem is trapped air in the system, but this did not happen yesterday after I bled it. and I am 100% sure it was bled properly. This leads me to believe that air is entering the system. There is obviously a leak somewhere, as otherwise all of the water would not have drained when the car was parked up for a year. To play devils advocate, maybe when I parked it up last year, it was nearly empty of water - but that seems a little far fetched????

My inkling is there is probably a leak somewhere, and air is being drawn into the system. But I can't find out where the leak is. I have checked the following

1) checked the rad hoses and can't see anything
2) I have checked all the carpets and they are all dry, thus indicating the heater matrix is not leaking

3) This leaves the head gasket, but I don't see any white smoke, loss of power or residue in the coolant. Maybe I should buy one of those chemical testers?

The car overheated in the past after a bump from an accident which damaged the radiator, but I replaced the rad and it ran fine for a year or so before I parked it up.

What do you think guys?

19th February 2019, 22:26

I gave my coolant a good flush a few months ago and was losing coolant and it ended up being a leaking radiator. Had to look for steam when the car was hot. Fill it up, bleed it and get it up to temperature. Do it in the dark and use a torch to try and look for steam. It should show up easily in the dark with a torch.

20th February 2019, 13:45

To the op does the coolant smell of fuel,is there a creamy gunk around the oil filler cap?

20th February 2019, 17:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevo67

To the op does the coolant smell of fuel,is there a creamy gunk around the oil filler cap?

I have now determined that coolant is leaking from the bottom of the radiator. I have now removed the radiator and 100% confirmed this. I find this very strange as I only purchased the radiator 3 years ago brand new, so it must have been a bad quality rad.

What is really worrying, is there was some brown oily sludge in the bottom of the radiator. When I removed the rad, about 2 table spoons of brown oily sludge drained out from the bottom of the rad onto some old newspapers.

Considering I only filled the rad up the other day, the water did not look too bad, but I did notice some evidence of oil in the water. This was in the form of rainbow-like colors, similar to how an oil slick looks in a puddle. It did not look too bad, and was only present in some of the water, but nevertheless it's a worry.

I don't have any other symptoms of a head gasket fail. There is no white smoke and no loss of power. When water is not leaking from the rad it does not overheat and there are no bubbles in the coolant. Had a head gasket fail on another car and it shot the water straight out of the tank. There is nothing like that here. Equally there does not look to be any coolant in the engine oil. So not sure what is going on? Does it sound like the start of a head gasket problem or a cracked block?

The strange thing is, the car had none of these problems when I parked it up a year ago.

Any thoughts?

20th February 2019, 18:52

Fit a new radiator,50/50 mix of coolant/antifreeze.Bleed the system,take it for a run & keep an eye on the coolant.

20th February 2019, 19:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevo67

Fit a new radiator,50/50 mix of coolant/antifreeze.Bleed the system,take it for a run & keep an eye on the coolant.

Any thoughts on the oily sludge in the old radiator and a few spots of rainbow-like colors in the coolant, similar to how an oil slick looks in a puddle. For me this seems worrying? What do you think?

20th February 2019, 19:27

If your really worried,then get your garage to do a dye test.That'll confirm if the head gasket is on it's way out.

20th February 2019, 19:45

I really want to stay away from the garage, as I am reluctant to spend any money on the car. it's not worth a lot and will sell it in a few weeks anyway. I wonder if it is worth buying one of those chemical tests off ebay? I have seen them for about £8 - not sure if they are any good?

Tempted to just buy a rad and see what happens. If it is the head gasket, I really don't know what to do. From this video it does not look too bad to do myself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDbeboOjHDk

But then I would have to pay an engineering place to skim the head, and buy the gasket / bolt kit and new gasket for the manifolds. I can see the whole thing costing me £100 even if I do it myself. I think after putting the rad on if it turns out to be the head gasket, I may just end up scrapping the car.

If I was unscrupulous I could just put a new rad on and sell it on without saying anything, but I do like to be honest, and would feel really bad about doing this.

20th February 2019, 20:01

Factor in a new cambelt kit & water pump as well mate.

20th February 2019, 22:53

My coolant is a bit unpleasant too. It has a not very nice smell... I did think when I bought the car and drained / replaced the coolant (which turned partly foul again, not as bad though) that I had a headgasket failure. All I know is that I have now driven around 3500 miles and the car hasn't lost coolant nor has the coolant got any worse in terms of smell and appearance (it is a slightly brown color). In my case I think the car was run on just water for a while, also it is possible that something like barrs leaks was put in at some point (or it could have had a gasket failure and then not fully flushed).

You either need to have it checked out or just keep an eye on it, I think if you don't use ant-freeze you can get a sort of bacterial build up or some such thing. How much history do you have on the car ?

20th February 2019, 23:50

When I replaced the coolant on mine it took quite a few flushes and running a hose pipe straight through in both directions to get the water coming out crystal clear. I put brand new 50 50 coolant mix in a good few months ago now and the colour is exactly like it was when I put it in. Make sure you flush with the heater set to full to flush the heater core too!