Cavalier 1.8 head gasket gone? I spoke too soon.....

[RichardMoss]

My 4l Jeep Grand Cherokee blew all the water out on a desert driving trip thanks to an airlock. It got so hot that the oil started to smoked and the engine partially seized. Refilling with coolant and changing the oil were all I did and now 18 months on it is still going strong (and still going Offroad into the desert)

[Asimo]

Aircool rules.

 

All of the brakedowns, ie on the road failiures, have been due to water problems, hoses, HGF etc.

 

Just remembered the first one, air cooled Fiat, fan belt. My spare didn't fit.

[Pillock]

I was lent a mk4 Escort Estate as a courtesy car whilst my Beetle was in for work. Proper wrecked to start with, it was an E plate in 2001 or so. Got it from Mansfield to Sheffield up the motorway no probs, city centre it just stopped dead. Looked at fuel gauge, no problem. Looked at temp, mega high. Way past the top.

 

AA came out and quickly located the cut cable to the electric fan. It had got so hot on the M1, the pistons expanded and it seized solid, as soon as the 70mph cool air stopped.

[RichardMoss]

Aircool rules.

 

All of the brakedowns, ie on the road failiures, have been due to water problems, hoses, HGF etc.

 

Aircooled wouldn't really cut it here - air cooled engine, 50C+, desert driving at slow speed and high revs.  I'll stick with iron block/head and water cooling.

[Asimo]

^^^ Air cooling is affected less by hot conditions than water cooling because the cooled parts, engine fins, are a lot hotter than than the fins of a water radiator and the rate of cooling is proportional to the difference between the hot bits and the air temp. All car and truck air cooled engines have engine driven fans, the more revs, the more air is blown through the cooling ducts.

[tooSavvy]

It's all electronic tell tale stuff... if you overspeed the engine, it's logged. If it's low on coolant, and the light is on, and it goes over a certain temperature, it's logged. We can tell what time of day it happened, how many miles were driven SINCE the initial warning lamp, how many start ups, and it won't be long before we know how many times the bonnet was lifted since..... Then again, I had to replace a dipstick for a customer today..... in 12 months, it had NEVER been taken out.... rusted in (thankfully a plastic dipstick) so I was able to melt it and make it malleable enough to get it shifted. I hope they learnt summat today.

 

Clio (or, in this case SAVVY) dipsticks are known to rust solid into the tube. Water sits above the 'sealer' O-ring and after a while the rusty 'do-nut' stops the plastic dipstick being removed.

 

Mine came out by holding the plastic bit in waterpump pliers + judicious use of large screwie to lever up at the same time.

 

Grease smeared around the dipstick, where it goes into the steel tube, cures it 

 

* checking the dip every week may also help.....

 

 

TS