Thanks for the further replies. Crikey, that did not last long Mike, 2 minutes.
Anyway I am in contact with mazdabongo.com who use /are affiliated with Dormans which is
close-ish. Allan's cannot do the job at the mo and as he knows we really are a long old schlep away.
I had partly taken a decision which is not easy to get it done somewhere more local, it saves some
money with transport as it is closer.
So sniff test agreed to rule out cracked head going ahead, I agreed to that. (I would be collapse
on the floor in a heap if it was
, at 92C it just cannot be cracked, no other signs of any problems before I got
to the top of my road.)
So they are going to do some pre-existing planned jobs for us as well as trouble shoot the small leak/overheat.. new water pump, 8 hoses (from Fury club so I supply those) for the engine, supply and fit....cam belt, aux and air con belts, clean banjo filter and fuel filter. The rates seem fairly reasonable.
I have let them know it had a new head/rad and thermostat 3 year ago. And described symptoms.
Hopefully it is not one of the metal pipes ! ( I have one rear heater pipe (1 of them) which I will throw into the van on the off chance, I am not anticipating that but ?? In case) But you can never know so I am planning to get the vehicle to them for Monday and there may be a bit of a wait before they get going on it.
Fingers crossed and I won't have to pay much more than I was going to in October.
Rather stressful.
PS As I just remembered.. I have also asked if they have ever bypassed the rear heater pipes as that might make
the system more robust overall and rule them out of any leaks in the future. Not sure how easy that is
or how many people have it done. We never use the rear heater and anything in the name of making the
cooling system more reliable.