J

john1doherty

New Member
Hi all
i have a 99 td5 and it had started to loose a bit of water so i added rad weld, i know stupid move you say, anyway you live and learn. Driving along on a fairly long journey the temp guage took a nose dive to cold for about 20 seconds then came back to normal so i drive on thinking i will have to get a new temp sensor fitted thinking it was faulty. when i got to where i was going i switched off the engine and when i tried to start it again the temp guage went right up to the red and the engine would not start , when i opened the bonet i found the large top hose , the one with the bleader nipple on it, busted and all the water gone from expansion bottle.So off i went and got a new hose and thermostat as the old one was likely blocked by rad weld and changed it , filled her up and away she went, problem is i had to top it up every few days for a while with a small bit of water, then it was 1 litre every morning now i have just went out and i had to put 2 litres in before leaving and while out the heater started blowing cold so i switched her off and let it cool and opened the expansion bottle where she took another 2 litres. question is have i cooked the head ? of is there a problem with airlocks ? how do i go about checking for the problems myself without spending a fortune on a 11 year old car with a few dents and 150000 on the clock ? is there anypoint in removing the stat, flushing the system and bunging in the rad weld ? will the car run ok without the stat fitted or will i have to refit after rad welding ? not looking forward to removing the stat let alone refitting it as it is a pig to get at ?
Any advice greatly welcome as i do love driving the pig.
 
now that was a rapid response !!
oil looks fine , just pulled out the dipstick and checked it looks normal black and viscous not as if it had loads of water in it also removed the oil cap and checked it nothing out of the ordinary here either ?
 
does it steam out of the exhaust? could have cracked the cylinder head does it leave any marks where it has been sitting?
 
My personal experiences with Radweld and K-Seal is that TD5's don't like it and it usually fouls the thermostat and causes the car to overheat.

So it's back to basics. They do take some bleeding and once you have the heater blowing hot on tickover you can be pretty certain you have bled it enough. Follow instructions in RAVE for correct procedure as it is exacting.

Once bled visually check the whole cooling system for leaks with the engine running. If you still have the cover fitted under the engine you need to take this off.

To check exhaust for steam use some thick rubber gloves and cup your hands near exhaust and get someone to rev engine. If you see condensation then it points to HGF.

If there is nothing obvious from the hoses or waterpump housing you will need to get the cooling system pressure tested and sniff tested. Also as mentioned above check the coolant for oil traces and the oil for coolant traces.

Next step would be to do a flow test on the radiator if all else is good.

TONY
 
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i will try the exhaust in the morning , the heater was blowing hot after i filled the expansion back up and ran it with the cap off for a while and it never blew cold since untill today, there appears to be a small drip coming from under the car when sitting but i cant see where it is coming from either above or below but it is not driping at the rate of water lost from each run , i have tried it with the engine running and reving as well and it does not seem to get any worse. could the system be over pressurising and blowing water out the expansion tank overflow ? i will rig up a bottle to the overflow in the morning to see if it is happening. Would blockages in the system cause this to happen and will i benifit from flushing the system through and refilling ?
i have a copy of rave here but will have to dig it out , do you know off hand if it tells you how to flush ? or do any of you know ?

cheers
 
If it is over pressurizing and blowing it out of the tank then you will see coolant around the header tank and wetness below the overflow pipe - It will be very obvious.

Radweld may have caused a blockage so give it a good flush with the hose. Just flush all entry / exit points with low pressure hose. You might as well take the rad off and flush that as well before flow testing it.

You need to find the drip!! - RAVE has a great schematic of the cooling system so use this to trace the leak.

TONY
 
cheers tony , i know how my cold monday morning will be spent :(, back in the garage doing repairs to another cooling system. just spent yesterday changing the water pump and thermostat on my galaxy and clearing airlocks !!
i will get on it in the morning and post the results back on here again.
cheers all
 
Look forward to hearing how you get on. I am getting pretty frustrated at the same set of issues. Had a lot of the coolant pipe work replaced (pipes were in poor state after oil cooler failure and oil entered coolant), just had the water pump done and still losing coolant. Mechanic is pretty sure it is not head gasket but following collection on Saturday, it lost most of its coolant over about 150 miles when I checked it last night - after loss of cabin heating on way home. There was clear evidence of the coolant sprayed in the area between the header tank and the engine. Not sure if it came from the overflow

Over the past few months, it was a case of ever increasing coolant loss, at first it was a pint every couple of thousand, then dropping to a pint every few hundred miles. Have noticed high pressure in the large coolant pipe (the one with the bleed screw) sometimes an gurgling behind the dash. Main rad was checked previously and the heater matrix replaced some time ago.

Getting peed off now and will be ringing mechanic again this morning. Only consolation is that I get his RR Classic LSE soft dash for a few more days.
 
well just out of the garage after spending the morning under / over and in the car and i have checked all hg related issues and found nothing untill i refilled the expansion bottle and low and behold the thing drained right in front of my eyes ! got underneath and found , with a lot of searching and pipe removal etc a small hole in the water pump housing between two of the fixing bolts this was ****ing the water out and must have gotten big enough to be found in the last few days ( is that a good thing or bad ?) anyhow i now need to block the hole as a temporary measure untill i can get a new pump set up and get it fitted as i need the car on a daily basis. Dont know if this is the only problem but i will need to sort it before moving on to look at others.
Question is does anyone know how or the best thing to use to seal it ? its a smallish hole about 2mm , is there a weld type paste i can get for it ?
 
Dave j , not to sound silly but have you tried replacing the cap on the expansion tank ? if this is faulty and not releasing a build up of pressure slowly then it will come out the overflow at least i think thats how it works, anyway it might be worth a few quid to find out ?
 
the hole your on about is the drain for when the pump seals fail.
we temporarily bodged a 300 tdi to get us home by cutting a wall plug in half, wrapping with ptfe tape, shoving it in the hole and lightly screwing a screw in.
dunno how easy this would be on a 2mm hole, but if your in civilisation, i would get it changed.
 
John,
Thanks for that, but the cap was replaced last week, I had thought of it and mentioned it to the lads. It is heading back down to them later for another look, at least we now have a general idea of where it is leaking out.
 
ah well dave i just thought i would mention it.
nrgserv the hole you are talking about - the drain , if it was ****ing water would that indicate a faulty water pump ? i have sealed in for now with leak fix as i thought it had corroded its way through or the likes , will i do any harm now i have sealed it ?
Problem wasent solved there still ****ing water from the other side some where back out under it for another go after the spuds and see what i can fing wrong with it now- afraid of what i might find though
 
from the other side of?
the pump?

pump drain hole is there to allow water to escape due to nacked seals.
caused by but not limited to, nacked bearings, run dry, age, lack of use.

sealing it will allow the cause to get worse without the indication of it ****ing water out.
not swapped a td5 pump, but do know there driven off the back of summat else, but cant remember what without looking at rave. not sure if the summat else would be damaged by water ingress from a dodgy pump.
 
Found my leak last night, it is coming from the one of the pipes between the header tank and the engine block, quite low down, just over the steering rack when looking from above. Quite a little fountain on it too. The hole is just around the t-junction. Hopefully get it replaced today with ease!
 
just had the water pump out and its well knackered and the water was ****ing out of the seal where it links to the power steering pump, no damage caused to this as it is sealed.
Its not at all handy to remove the water pump on a td5 , but then is anything easy on these ?
Anyway i found it easier to remove the auxillary belt and unbolt the ac pump and just move it out of the way this lets you get in and remove the 5 bolts on the power steering pump , lift the steel plate off and pull out the powersteering pump and leave to one sidethis exposes the back of the water pump and you can see where the link is to drive it from the power steering pump. Go around the back to beside the rotary oil filter housing and remove the 5 bolts on the water pump cover ,remove the water hose from the pump cover and prise off this will expose the pump itself you need to unbolt the rotary oil filter housing and disconect the oil supply to the turbo to get th pump out i also had to slightly dent the oil filter to get to one of the bolts on the rotary housing. wiggle the pump out it is fiddely so bear with it and replace with the new one and reverse your steps to put everything back together again. just make sure the knuckle on the waterpumt fits into the one on the power steering pump when fitting. hope this will help someone as my copy of rave only shows the removal of the waterpump on the v8 engine and it is totally different to the 2.5td as i found out !!
 
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power steering pump!
knew it were summat like that. also remember now they sound a pig to get out.

mate had one to do, he got the bits and still aint done it.
 
unfortunately i had no choice, it was either replace it or rig up a header tank on the roof to keep it topped up with water !! anyway its done now so cant wait to the next thing goes wrong. untill then .............
cheers everyone for the help, this site is priceless
 
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