Nice reading...especially as I've just purchased a '99 1.8 Freelander -83 thou on the clock) that has just consumed three and a half Litres of water in 120 miles without any obvious external signs of a leak from the system.

:doh:
 
have you changed your inlet manifold gasket?

The curious thing about this whole issue was that prior to checking the water and finding it missing I was sure I could smell the distinctive scent of radiator water whilst sitting in traffic with the window down. Having found not hint of leakage anywhere, however, I put the smell down to my imagination.
Today, the mystery of the vanishing water was solved by a very nice man from the AA who found a split in one of the heater pipes just abaft the hose clip beneath the coil. He also suspected that the head gasket had gone at some stage as he could see a residue of ingrained staining inside the header tank. So, that imagined smell of rad water wasn't imagined after all.
However..having now read most of the posts in this thread I'm wondering if the best thing I could do with my '99er is take it out and shoot it straight through the engine thus putting it out of my pending future misery or -as many on this site seemingly have- develop masochistic tendencies and thereafter get used to having my wallet thrashed on a regular basis!?

:rofl:
 
just a thought you can now buy waterless coolant.it has a stupidly high boiling point will never freeze so no antifreeze needed and the whole system will be pressureless you can even remove the cap while engine is running.

Evans Waterless Engine Coolants

would using this not help relive the problems ?
 
No!

You could have coolant capable of sustaining 4000C, but yu would have a melted block and a puddle of high temperature coolant :(.

It's not the coolant that's the problem, it's the weak engine and cooling design.
 
Just a quick update about mine. The EWP never really settled in, still had problem with heat spikes and weird habits. After a trip to Buxton where it was all over the place I got sick of it, so me and DD took the whole bloody lot out and replaced all the hoses/stat/pump with brand new parts.

Long and short of it, I tried the EWP, had it in for over a year. It's not a solution, so we can cross it off the list of possible fixes. I'll be putting it on ebay soon, hopefully it will find its way onto a Caterham or something like it was designed for.

Will.
 
Not good news :(.
I still maintain the idea of extra, after shutdown, cooling can only be for the good, but you have had a magnificent attempt.

I wonder what Craig Davies say?
 
Not good news :(.
I still maintain the idea of extra, after shutdown, cooling can only be for the good, but you have had a magnificent attempt.

I wonder what Craig Davies say?

They were never much help to be honest, I don't think they fully grasp how different cars respond to it. If it's not a dead simple loop without any sub coolers or heater, it's going to be a nightmare. I'm not even sure if a simple loop would work as well, I suspect that heat and pressure have a huge part to play in this and I just don't have the facilities for exhaustive tests.

We gavce it our best, and DD is no amateur as you know. A run on pump would be great to supplement the the mechanical pump, but there's no a product out there in kit form to do that job at the moment.
 
A mate of mine was just raving about hydrogen hybrid conversions. After the EWP? ####ing hell no, I am not fitting experimental tech to my car ever again.
 

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