Topic

As this question has come up a couple of times I'll highlight this useful diagram from Dieter's site.

Great post David very useful

Great post, in the back of my head I knew I needed to find out the size of coolant pipes to rad hoses for the PRT install. Just saved me work!

This diagram has been very handy in helping me to track down some dripping coolant leaks I have. Here's some random pics I took, from under the car, in trying to track down the leaking part. Cameras are great when you don't want to get dirty.

So I dived into the engine with two splashes..

Here's the two leaking hose joints that I found.





I lowered and tightened the hoses and zip tied above them. Not sure if it'll work 100% but I'll settle for 99.



Just under the top jubilee clip, in the pic above, you can see the euro roadster trip split hose - click click. It's been fine. But I really should fix it.. some day.

I took the car for a 10 mile spin to ensure the hoses were holding fast and then I let some air out of the system at the front and middle bleed points. Air tends to get in, as the coolant leaves the system, when you're tweaking hoses. I live on a hill which comes in handy. If you point the car nose up and let it run for a few minutes the air will make its way to the front radiator and is easily expelled.

Then I left it overnight in the garage with some cardboard from an old box under the engine...

The next morning, the cardboard was perfectly dry. So, the drips seem to have been stopped for now. No doubt all this extra pressure will blow my head gasket in no time.

Leigh Ping wrote: wrote:

No doubt all this extra pressure will blow my head gasket in no time.

No kidding! Here's a video of my latest 'chase the leaks' fiasco. If you look closely, you can see several small jet sprays coming from the expansion tank seal. Sound effects courtesy of my grandson 'Christopher'.



A new tank is on the way. Whilst waiting for it, I thought I'd run the coolant through a piece of material to try and clean it up a bit. The car runs well but the coolant has always looked murky.



Here's the results -

I used a specs cleaning rag as the sieve.



Fastened it around the return hose with a zip tie. Make sure the car isn't 'warmed up' if you do this -



Let it run until warm. Switch off before it spills out with the pressure build up - 15 minutes later -







Not as murky as it was ten minutes ago -

dude, that looks minging!

thankfully i don't have this issue, as during my inlet manifold leak phase, i think i probably replaced all of the coolant anyway

funny that the bottle went there. you didn't poke it about a bit too much when you were cleaning it did you?

groovylee wrote: wrote:

funny that the bottle went there. you didn't poke it about a bit too much when you were cleaning it did you?

Looks like it's been leaking for a while.



I'm hoping that this is the primary leak that I've been trying to track down. When the car was running it didn't show as a leak due to the coolant flowing. But after being turned off for a minute or so, the jet sprays, in the video, then occurred with the pressure being evacuated from the coolant system.

ooh, so that could be your main leak then! cool! (no pun intended lol)

My expansion tank cracked around the 'prong' underneath.

David Aiketgate wrote: wrote:

My expansion tank cracked around the 'prong' underneath.

Mine could be going the same way. Hopefully it's just a bad hose seal. I put two clamps on it though and thought that it was pretty tight. I'll check it again tomorrow. This is what I found with the camera on the new, old breakers yard, tank.