Hello again ,no I've not gone away still got the overheating problem I parked the TF up while I had a think and did some other stuff,mainly replacing the front wishbone bushes on my sons 2009 mini cooper what an utter,utter Bxstxxd forced to take the front of the car off, drop the engine, sub frame to get at the anti roll bar bolts, you can't get at them because the car body is in the way give me an dodgy head gasket any day .
Anyway back to the job in hand ,
the last time I used the car I fitted a new expansion tank cap and that made things worse,I got to work ok but on the way home I got to the end of our road and it boiled, pushing coolant out of the tank, so after parking her up I topped up the coolant and this Sunday I did this :-
After being parked for a fortnight no loss of coolant no air pockets.
started her and left her ticking over for about 20 minutes with the cap OFF got to temp ok level rose but nothing extreme noticed a few bubbles in the stream of coolant but not many and not large.
Let everything cool down coolant returned to normal level ,no air pockets .
Put the pressure cap on left her ticking over got to temp and the coolant expanded and nearly filled the bottle ,then the level dropped quite quickly to about the normal hot level , the temp maintained its ok reading i left her ticking over for about 10 minutes longer the level rose again this time blowing coolant out of the pressure cap I switched off.
I did still notice bubbles coming into the tank from the pipe into the tank as the end became submerged, still small and at irregular intervals but there all the time the engine was running .
let the car cool no air pockets and the level returned to normal .
There is also a noise when I switch the ignition on or off that can only be described as someone sucking on a lemon or orange it does it with the cap on or off .
The car has been left more than 30 odd hours with no loss of coolant and no air pockets .
Thanks for your help and trying to help me out, it is appreciated Andy.