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righto

been a while since i posted, my life got hectic in the past few months, been on a work mission it seems, dont have the time to commit to his board any more (and now my girlfriend just moved to falmouth, 370 miles away...)

still driving the 97 16v

last week on my drive home from work, my temp guage went over 110 and steam was coming out of the coolant tank thing.

i pulled over and watched most of my coolant get lost to trafford park as steam.

i promptly joined the aa (10pm - sunday night).

the nice aa man (he was a very nice man, who didnt want to play i spy with me...) and he took apart my thermostat and told me to get a new one - and then filled my coolant up with water and said "shove anti freeze in there"
i guess he had it running in "no thermostat" mode - which stopped my temp guage sitting in the middle and made it sit on the left, as though it was cold (so i'm guessing i'm on cold engine mode, using more petrol)

i did the anti freeze when i got home

and took car to garage for new thermostat the day after.

so now on new thermostat, driving to work, it gets warm as normal on my way down to the motorway.
after a few mins on the motorway, it creeps back up, till its sat at almost 110
i slow down, turn on the heaters in the car and open the windows and have a hot ride back home, give it back to garage.

they figure faulty thermostat, take mine to bits again, say come back in a couple o days and we'll try again

sure, so now running with no thermostat, did probably 200 miles and used up way loads of petrol - it ran cold for all those miles unless i was stuck in traffic - where temp guage sat in the middle and no higher.

now, thermostat number 2.
exactly the same thing happened as on new thermostat number 1 once i got to the motorway (causing me to miss a gig in leeds of a mate of mine from germany grrr)


so any ideas what causing this (bastard child i hope your not on holiday...)


the aa man tested my head gaskit thingy, it was fine
it wasnt over pressurising the coolant either


it cant be 2 faulty thermostats


is the radiator full of gunk? i dunno - but i was working fine before thermostat 1 went pop

the fans do kick in (or so my garage say, i couldnt hear them when i came home last night) - so maybe this is to blame

could be it an air lock? no idea, like i said, all working fine before first thermostat went pop


now, i'm sick of sounding like a broken record, taking back to my garage all the sodding time. (well, 3 times now)

plus they lent me a 97 corsa 1.2 to drive to work in, nice of them to lend me a car, but he corsa is awful to drive.

and, on thursday night i had planned to do the 370 mile drive to falmouth so i need this sod fixed

(though i do have aa cover, so i could just call them and get them to take to falmouth on the relay thing...)

cheers

could sound like a head gasket going mate

check your dipstick - does it have water on it? check your expansion tank - does it look like mayo in there?

an airlock would cause the temp to rise but it should come and go. try flushing the sytem out perhaps.

it's odd that with no thermostat the engine was ok - the radiator must be working ok in that case, the fans very rarely kick in unless stood still for about 5 mins!

perhaps it is full of gunk and needs to be flushed - hence why the thermostat isn't opening to let the water round the radiator. however, why is it full of gunk? I wonder if oil is getting into your water system. keep a close eye on oil levels and if the water is going places it shouldn't do....

i hope its not the head gasket - cos thats never a cheap fix

thermostat housing was knackered apparently


not had chance to drive it meself to find see if its totally fixed, but the garage boys seem confident

Same thing happened to me after I p-p-p-picked up my Polo. Thermostat housing was knackered. Really odd design and a common problem apparently. Sorry I didn't see your post earlier, or I'd have stuck my two penneth in when it might have been some use! Anyway, I hope your problem's sorted...