FTO AUSTRALIA

driving home work last night and i realise sh*ts getting hot on the temp gauge. like WAY HOT!
(and theres was a really high pitched squealing noise)
pulled over and the car died before i could turn it off. lifted bonnet, heaps of steamy crap. waited 20minutes and the car ended up starting and had cooled down. i got 2km up the road before it did it agin. so after seven 20minute breaks i made it home.
clearly there is a leak of some sort! i cannot find where from. as u can see the puddle of coolant is under the airbox area. refilled the radiater with water this morning and seems to be sitting in idle fine for the past 45mins. not game to drive it though.
i hate sh*t that i cant fix myself!
is it the radiator? waterpump ? or just a dodgy hose that only leaks whilst driving?
there is some coolant in the overflow, so does that mean my radiator is working?
theres no water in the oil so im hoping that rules out headgasket?

help would be SO much appreciated.

Could be a dodgy rad cap, leaking thermostat housing.

There are 5 coolant lines that run past that area, the to & from cooling lines to the throttle body (small diameter,) the to & from lines that go to the heater (larger diametre) and the small overflow line that goes to the secondary tank.

That & the possibility of what Matt said above, the only way you're going to figure this out is to pull everything out (battery, air intake etc) & inspect everything individually. Seeing as you've got lots of coolant in there, judging by the green colour, it wont be hard to find the leak, that coolant always dries & leaves white marks where it's been.

Bennoz wrote:the only way you're going to figure this out is to pull everything out (battery, air intake etc) & inspect everything individually.

ok ill give it a go. what am i looking for? because its going to be hard to find without the go running.

LOL

What is with you Gen Y'ers.

If sh*t breaks, get the fucker towed.
Fkn comical everytime I read one of these type of posts.

No useful information will be given here, move along.

For once, myself and Matt have swapped roles in thread replies.

Astron_Boy wrote:If sh*t breaks, get the fucker towed.

+1

Either way it made it home I guess.

As Ben said, seeing as its a coolant leak then logic says you need to check in every place that coolant runs. Would suggest looking above the puddle first.

Thank you captain obvious, I know.

Edit: Check to see if all the hoses arent cracked or broken and also check the tightness of the clamps.

Just replace all those hoses and the radiator cap with new ones, it wont cost much and they are probably all f**ked.
At least then you have ruled out all of them if the problems persists.

The only problem with driving it home while overheating constantly is that you can blow your head gasket or even crack or warp your head.
I hope you were at least topping up the water each time you stopped to cool down.

At this time of the year driving a car with a leaking cooling system is stupid. That temp gauge is there to tell you that it's getting too hot to safely operate the car. Pull over and get it towed if you don't have enough coolant to keep it topped up. You will cause serious damage if you ignore it.

My car did the exact same thing when I replaced my OEM hoses with Samco ones. It turned out that one of the hose clips on the lower hose wasn't tight enough and as pressure built in the system it leaked.

If a visual inspection can't find what the problem is then fill it up to the max and drive it around until the gauge starts to slightly creep up and then pull over and have a look while someone revs it. Hopefully you might be able to catch where it's leaking from.

U need to put a pressure tester on it. 10psi and you'll see where it's leaking. If you have a mechanic or rad joint nearby, fill it up and drive it down and ask them to pressure test it. If not call a mobile mechanic.

But as Phil suggested if it is one of those hoses change em all as it's a pita to get to as it is. In fact I'd suggest buy all the hoses, then get a mobile mech round to pressure test it and change them over for you.

Ive got new hoses on the shelf in the shed for l both auto and manual if that helps

problem was the slightest leak when the car gets driven long distances one of the hoses had the tiniest split and had been leaking over a loong period untill that night it was empty. no didnt have any water to top it up. but like i said i stopped everytime it got real hot. there was probably 500mls left of coolant after it. and believe it or not there hasnt been any damage to head or anything. got samco hoses alloy radiater and a cap from camskill. took it to mechanic for pressure test, was allgood. drove to brisbane and back (16hours driving with no cooling off period) and to work a few times and no leaks or anything. so i guess i was really lucky.

Awesome result
Did you get a new radiator for it?

You know the temperature on the gauge only works when water is flowing past it...

If u had no water what temperature is it gonna report?

silverGPX wrote:You know the temperature on the gauge only works when water is flowing past it...

If u had no water what temperature is it gonna report?

obviously had the remaining half a litre flowing thru it. temp report was really hot.

Technikhaus wrote:Awesome result
Did you get a new radiator for it?

yep. probably didnt need it but figured if im doing all the hoses and a flush and top quality coolant change, why run it through a sh*tty old radiator. so santa got me a shiny new one =)

sweet, good choice

destinationtoby wrote:

silverGPX wrote:You know the temperature on the gauge only works when water is flowing past it...

If u had no water what temperature is it gonna report?

obviously had the remaining half a litre flowing thru it. temp report was really hot.

Should not of driven it at all. The point I am trying to make is that the engine was far hotter than what was shown on the gauge.

And if u only had half a litre of coolant, there would not have been any coolant flowing through the radiator. U would need at least enough coolant to reach the height of the water pump.

U are very lucky to have got away with it. Hopefully no probs show up in the future.

destinationtoby wrote:problem was the slightest leak when the car gets driven long distances one of the hoses had the tiniest split and had been leaking over a loong period untill that night it was empty. no didnt have any water to top it up. but like i said i stopped everytime it got real hot. there was probably 500mls left of coolant after it. and believe it or not there hasnt been any damage to head or anything. got samco hoses alloy radiater and a cap from camskill. took it to mechanic for pressure test, was allgood. drove to brisbane and back (16hours driving with no cooling off period) and to work a few times and no leaks or anything. so i guess i was really lucky.

Well done, back on the road