Keep OVerheating! arh! Help!

[Cubes]

I had my waterpump leaking from the small hole under the impeller for around 6 months..

I used to go through a full overflow bottle of water every week roughly.

The water trailed along the sump and made the leak look like it was coming from underneath the turbo.

The top radiator hose was always soft and never developed any pressure inside due to the leak.

[Guest mort]

As JIMX said if the water is not leaking out it must be leaking in,the first thing you should do is a sniffer test on the radiator coolant / water to see if there is no cracks in the cyl head.Remove the rocker cover and see if there is any visible sign of water in the head, we had a VL commodore with this problem it was using water but not overheating and on inspection the cyl head was cracked under the cam but not enough to affect the oil. Is the car blowing a lot of steam when it is cold, the most common place for these heads to crack is around the exhaust valves and the sniffer test will show this up .If the whole cooling system is working fine you should't need to top up the water at all, so there is deffinately a problem there.

[bryanlee38]

Well i went into supercheap today to buy some coolant. he told me it there was nothing to worry about because:

i bought the car a month ago, the previous owner just had the car sitting for about about 4 months, not turning on nothing. So yeah he said dont worry about it. He gave me this coolant booster thing, small bottle - only 500ml. He said just drain a little water and pour the whole 500ml bottle into the radiator - i told him i'm only keeping my car for 6 months. he said that'll do. I havent been able to find the plug to release the water - still searching. If i just left the tap water in the radiator, how long before it acutally does any damage to radiator - rust?

[Roy]

I woudnt be going on the word of a salesman at Supercheap. Do as a few have suggested and take it to a mechanic and see what they say.

If you dont want to do this then keep removing the oil filler cap and inspecting the oil colour in the cam covers as well as the oil on the dipstick.

If you leave it too long and it is a cracked head then you will eventually do bearing damage etc etc. Then you will be up for new engine, when you may have got away with just head or maybe even a gasket. Or worse get stuck trying to sell a lemon to another person.

And someone correct me if im wrong, but the biggest prob with alloy head and tap water is corrosion of the alloy parts like head and water pump, not the copper radiator.

[jlnewton]

Give up on band-aid fixes, just take it to someone who knows (ie a mechanic) before it cost big dollars. Could be any number of things, not worth taking the risk. Even if you only plan to keep the car for 6 months, if something big goes wrong between now and then, then you will be stuck with a broken car and be seriously out of pocket.