12-02-2021, 11:45 PM
Hmmm...
Andrew, you raise a fair point, that has me doubting myself. The road test produced clouds of water vapour but wasn't boiling furiously if at all. The top of the tank got to 80 deg C in my static tests, whilst the bottom was maybe 10 deg C. Is that sort of temperature gradient ever OK? (car running at lively tickover for 6 mins, from ambient of -4 deg C)
I could test again, and see if it actually boils - I don't want to cause un-necessary damage to the engine. If it is normal operation for this car, it's going to be a touch embarrassing to drive....
John H - I did try running a garden hose up through the side branch, and water flowed merrily out of the top branch, suggesting that there was a clear route for water through the block... that said, I got the same connecting the hose to the rad, which suggests there's atleast one path through the rad.
If I hook up a rig like Charles' I can find out whether flow is OK through the engine, and clean it out a bit at the same time.
Charles - do engines overheat running on your external water tank? how quickly do they get up to temperature? (clearly the water is not being cooled by a rad, but there's a lot more of it, and the engine can't be working that hard....)
Andrew, you raise a fair point, that has me doubting myself. The road test produced clouds of water vapour but wasn't boiling furiously if at all. The top of the tank got to 80 deg C in my static tests, whilst the bottom was maybe 10 deg C. Is that sort of temperature gradient ever OK? (car running at lively tickover for 6 mins, from ambient of -4 deg C)
I could test again, and see if it actually boils - I don't want to cause un-necessary damage to the engine. If it is normal operation for this car, it's going to be a touch embarrassing to drive....
John H - I did try running a garden hose up through the side branch, and water flowed merrily out of the top branch, suggesting that there was a clear route for water through the block... that said, I got the same connecting the hose to the rad, which suggests there's atleast one path through the rad.
If I hook up a rig like Charles' I can find out whether flow is OK through the engine, and clean it out a bit at the same time.
Charles - do engines overheat running on your external water tank? how quickly do they get up to temperature? (clearly the water is not being cooled by a rad, but there's a lot more of it, and the engine can't be working that hard....)