406oc.co.uk

This car is driving me MAD!!!

following on from the expansion hose thread,
still having coolant forced out the cap, low coolant light on after 20 - 30 miles of "enthusiastic" driving
keep revs below 2500 does nearer 60 -70 miles between top ups.
put a new stat in yesterday and just now gone to bleed it ,
rad screw :no air ,
bulk head: no air
undo stat bleed screw........... nothing. no coolant at all but the guage says nigh on 90 degrees
rad hoses cold, rad is cold thermostat must be shut!!??

gave it some revs for 20 secs or so and we get it circulating, rad hoses hot , rad hot no cold spots, undo bleed screw still nothing.
gave the hoses a squeze and it shifted air out so coolant is coming through now.
question is whats the chances of a brand new stat being a duffa??
it had 82c stamped on it . does this mean it should be fully open at 82 or start to open at 82??
would the airlock affect the working of the stat??

so many questions

just trying to get me head round it
if it forces the coolant out again i'm gonna throw some k seal in there just in case it's the head gasket tho i have no syptoms of gsket failure

any enlightenment on the stat would be great

regards

kev

Test the stat in a container of hot water,

ive seen new stats been faulty in the past,

I thought they were better now but it always used to be an idea to test a new thermostat because there was a good chance it was a duff'un, I had a couple myself which I found out about the hard way

Have you checked the cap itself?
if its loosing water from there id try a new cap ,

lozz wrote:Have you checked the cap itself?
if its loosing water from there id try a new cap ,

1st thing i bought when this saga started. it is different to the one that was originally on and i questioned this and they said it was done off reg number so it's right, and peugeot changed the design of them. i bought it from a main dealer too.
also put the original one back on too and that was even worse!!

how hard should the rad hoses go?? they seem too hard some how, like a push bike tyre thats fully inflated, there's a bit of give but not tat much.. does this sound right??
also just remembered ,to make getting at the stat easier thougt i would whip off the pipe from the intercooler that runs over the top of the stat housng to make life a bit easier but it was stuck on didn't even think about coming off ,
but after the pressure had been released from the cooling system by un doing the stat housing the intercooler pipe went loose again and would of come off easily ...does that sound right??

steve_earwig wrote:I thought they were better now but it always used to be an idea to test a new thermostat because there was a good chance it was a duff'un, I had a couple myself which I found out about the hard way

might have to whip it back out then. just spent 12 quid on antifreeze

No the hoses shouidnt be hard, as aguess theres a big air-lock if so,

Have you tried Raising the front of the car abit so the Rad is higher than the Matrix and then Bleed it off with the heater on full,
Works on some cars,


Worst case scenario, Hg or water pump on its last legs,

over the last 10 days or so i've tried pretty much everything now.
had the water pump done with cambelt kit 4 weeks ago , this only seems to have been happening after that ,so maybe a massive airlock as you say.
if it does it again after today then the bottle of k seals goin in
only time will tell, but i don't think i'll be waiting too long for an answer lol
will let you know

What is the heater blowing like?

any cold or luke warm spots,

kevtherev wrote:might have to whip it back out then. just spent 12 quid on antifreeze

You could catch it all in a bowl, I've seen this done a few times but I never like the idea of putting any crap it picks up on the way down back into the engine, however you might want to do this (perhaps strain it through a stocking to catch anything nasty) and change it properly when you know the car's ok.

Pug did change the size of the expansion tank filler, I noticed this when I went to fill the D9 with my header tank thing after using it on the D8 - it got smaller. Perhaps you might want to do it this way yourself just to be doubly sure. Hmm, it was one the Wiki but that seems to be dead now, there's always viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4482&hilit=header

I'm still driving about with my one in the boot, although it's now flat

just been to get the mrs from work
2 mile each way so by the time i'm home temp guage is up to the 9 of 90
top rad hose still cold. so is rad. hoses hard.
2000 rpm for 30 seconds , and it only came through then, rad didn't get particuly warm really, but earlier with the expansion cap off it got red hot this is also when i bled the stat housing and it was flowing well out of it , nearly burnt me fingers thru the gloves.
so.....
when the systems (over)pressurised the rad doesn't appear to get overly warm but with the cap off there's no problem (it would seem) any theories appreciated on that one

thinking take the stat out and run it without it, if the system pressurises= HG gone
if it doesn't pressurise with no stat in = duff stat

would the stat housing seal without the stat and o ring in it??

steve_earwig wrote:

kevtherev wrote:might have to whip it back out then. just spent 12 quid on antifreeze

You could catch it all in a bowl, I've seen this done a few times but I never like the idea of putting any crap it picks up on the way down back into the engine, however you might want to do this (perhaps strain it through a stocking to catch anything nasty) and change it properly when you know the car's ok.

Pug did change the size of the expansion tank filler, I noticed this when I went to fill the D9 with my header tank thing after using it on the D8 - it got smaller. Perhaps you might want to do it this way yourself just to be doubly sure. Hmm, it was one the Wiki but that seems to be dead now, there's always viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4482&hilit=header

I'm still driving about with my one in the boot, although it's now flat

chopped the bottom off an old screen wash bottle and put electrical insulation tape round it .
this is the 3rd time its been bled in 2 weeks
wanted to see water out the stat housing screw today so i'm pretty certan there aint no air in there
really am running out of ideas now
thanks for all advice so far

lozz wrote:What is the heater blowing like?

any cold or luke warm spots,

heaters are hot . 2 mins driving after being sat overnight and they start blowing warm thru

kevtherev wrote:

lozz wrote:What is the heater blowing like?

any cold or luke warm spots,

heaters are hot . 2 mins driving after being sat overnight and they start blowing warm thru

Leak somewhere perhaps,

get the garage that did the timing belt and water pump to check there work before the head gasket go's pop, as it was fine before and now is on the blink. as for the pipe it should not be hard it should be a bit stiff

madmadmax wrote:get the garage that did the timing belt and water pump to check there work before the head gasket go's pop, as it was fine before and now is on the blink. as for the pipe it should not be hard it should be a bit stiff

i'm confident he's done it right and trust him
he's done my brothers and dad's cambelt kits too.
what i'm not so confident about is the person who sold me the car a month ago.
thinking back i reckon he knew about this problem and knew it was gasket trouble ; i'm pretty much convinced of it too now.
but with no mayo,steam out the exhaust you wouldn't know.
flushed the rad yesterday no change. i tested the old stat in a pan of water and that opened fine.
chucked the k seal in and it seems the rad hoses aren't as hard as before but still over pressurised so the problem remains.
got another bottle of k seal on order and thats goin in too.

was looking at a vid on you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqKt4nzF7Nc
at 1.04 the new gasket is on and when i've been bleeding with a header tank i get bits of what appear to be plastic pushed up from the engine.
these bits are exactly the same colour as that head gasket i woud assume that's an oem gasket on the vid??

think i'm gonna put this one down to experiance as i've given up now
thinking of getting a loan and buying something newer. if the car can last till jan i can mot it hopefully fairly cheaply and use it as p/x
then i think that'll be my days of 406 ownership finished
£1100 down the sh***er