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Water Overheat


coyoteboy

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So I sat idling for a while (30 minutes, traffic queue) yesterday and I didn't notice the temp LEDs going north. They reached the 3rd from right before the rad cap decided to turn into a kettle (literally whistling) and vent 4 litres of water onto the road. No warning beeps, no water level warning - nothing. I turned the engine off and rolled it to the side of the road for 30 minutes, added some more water and she fired up and drove home just fine, no overheat, no extra rattles or knocks, oil reached 115 so was probably doing the bulk of my cooling. I'm hoping no damage. 

 

When I got home I saw the drivers side rad fan was spinning slowly (quietly) so I know that works, and the passenger side one was not spinning but was free to do so  - so I'm a bit baffled as to why it's vented its guts. I idled it in the drive for 10 minutes and couldn't get it to repeat the problem. 

 

I'll check the usual (fan stats, both fan function etc), look for pinhole leaks with a UV dye, but is there anything commonly known on these that would catch me out?

 

Cheers

 

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Sounds like the very common fan motor failure and replacement usually fixes the problem.

Remember and carry out a full and proper bleed of your coolant system as you will now have excess air trapped due to the loss of 4 litres of coolant.

 

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Hmm right, thanks for that - I'll search about and dig up more info, but that narrows down the target area nicely, thanks.

 

Totally freaked me out, gone from being the most reliable car I've owned to potential catastrophic engine damage in one journey!

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Hmm close inspection of the fan units, including a strip-down, show no problems at all. Both work fine when connected to a battery - I stripped and checked the brushes and bearings anyway to be sure, then re-assembled and re-checked. 

 

I guess the ECU controls them separately anyway, so I was probably freaking out over nothing there. 

 

I'm going to run some UV dye through the system and try to find some leaks, in case it's that building up an airlock.

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Hmmm can't find a bleed process here, and floating about online there's a lot of talk of bleed valves in the heater hoses - I have none. 

 

Do we have to vacuum bleed these? I'm not keen to spend 100 quid on a vacuum bleed tool for one use but if I'm likely to airlock myself to death I'd rather do it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Still not found any cause - can't get the fans to turn on in the drive idling for 10 minutes but the temps don't change either now.

 

Really odd. I ended up vacuum filling the system (that tool works really well!) with new cooland and some UV dye so will find out if I start losing coolant anywhere.

 

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