Coolant hose on its way out?

[flippa]

after all this preperation i hope you have a good trip mr halibut, i think you made the right choice with the 4 , as kirsty says there are now 14 hoses available ,not a job for the faint hearted but well worth doing ....

cheers guys

[Mr Halibut]

I hope so too!

I also decided to order a new thermostat as they are fairly cheap and I will be pulling pipes off from around there.

[missfixit70]

Thats not a bad idea when I get around to doing it, Didn't think of that.

[Mr Halibut]

What a busy couple of days.

Friday after work I fitted my coolant alarm, easy peasy.
Saturday I flushed the system through, even though it looked very clean, drained it, took off the old pipes which where a bugger to shift. I am glad to get rid of that old pipe, it had started to become porous and ooze coolant through it. Fitted the new pipes and thermostat (thermostat screws are a pig to get back in).
Refilled it with anti freeze and de-ionised water using the seesaw method to bleed it out. I had to use the measuring jug method instead of a funnel on the bleed hose because the funnel I bought was slightly too fat. I had someone hold the jug with the submerged bleed pipe getting a few good glugs of air coming out whilst I squeezed pipes, watched the temp guage and expansion tank, backfilling from the bleed pipe every so often. After getting her nice and hot and feeling a good bit of heat in the bottom hose my friend started complaining that the anti freeze was getting hot so we plugged up the bleed hose and let her run for a bit longer. After that we took her for a spin around the block, no probs and left her to cool down.
Came back and the water level had dropped a bit so topped up and took a drive over to inkberrow to check on the Caravan and then drove back with no issues. Touch wood everything went ok and will remain that way, I have a good litre or two of the left over anti freeze mix in the boot ready for any more loss over the next few days.

[Peg leg Pete]

Sounds very promising

[mikeonb4c]

Excellent Mr Halibut - sounds like a job or two well done

Flippa, out of interest, do you offer all 14 hoses as a set and what would the cost be if so? One fine day I may go for replacing mine but what I keep thinking if I don't do the lot then (Murphys Law) it'll be one of the ones I didn't do that ends up going!

[flippa]

nice one mr H sounds like a job well done .....mike i now do a full set yet to list it, but just this evening met scanner who bought a 14 hose set for the bargain price of £220.00 ...might sound alot to some !!!but price up the set in rubber if you can find all 14

[cheffy34]

14

[hatris]

Hi how do you go about getting the 14 hoses at the bargain price? Do I pm flippa or do I have to tackle ebay? Are the clips easy to get hold of? Sorry for all the questions but can anyone point us in the right direction. Many thanks hatris

[mikeonb4c]

nice one mr H sounds like a job well done .....mike i now do a full set yet to list it, but just this evening met scanner who bought a 14 hose set for the bargain price of £220.00 ...might sound alot to some !!!but price up the set in rubber if you can find all 14

Thanks Flippa. £220 sounds pretty good to me for achieving piece of mind. I'll plan to do a full hose inspection and may get a set for fitting when next coolant change comes around. What colours will you be offering them in (I'd probably go for boring old black but it could be argued it'd be easier to identify the hoses amongst all the other engine gubbins, if I chose another colour. Ooh decisions decisions!

[flippa]

Hatris you have mail cheffy yes 14 mike the set of 14 will only be available in blue...right im off to order some more clips

[cheffy34]

Spose that'll be a bakers dozen for mine then flip

[flippa]

spot on cheff the v6 set would be only 13 if i ever manage to get that hose it already has a name hmm hoses named after forum members

[cheffy34]

Smiffy is me nickname does it mean i get a free set

[Mr Halibut]

Not a happy ever after yet..

I Drove to work and back and done a few other runs driving around at normal speed with no problems at all. So I decided to push her a bit harder up a slight incline (very slight) up to around 85mph for about a 1 mile. Part way up the temp needle is gliding its way up to 3/4 so I take my foot off the gas and it drop back down, luckily I crested a hill and let the freewheel downhill cooled her back to normal.
Bled her cold and nothing...scratch my head and swear for a while.
Took her out for another spin and went up a slightly higher incline at 65 mph, same thing again! This time I stopped at the side of the road to let her cool down rather than completing the hill. Got impatient and removed the expansion tank cap and got a hot shower. Phoned a friend and we set to work bleeding her again at the side of the road, replacing the antifreeze that was now on the floor and on me , drove home and drank some alcohol. Later that evening I noticed a slight weep from one of the new bottom hoses so I tightened the clip up and it stopped.
Drove to work and back no problems, decided to tackle the 85mph or bust run again and she started to overheat again...but not as fast.
Bled her again and after a long time and a very hot bleed pipe some small bubbles came out.
let her cool, did a cold bleed.
Went to work and back the next day..no problems,
Decided to be brave and tackle the big hill again at 65...seems ok,
Decided to tackle the same hill again today at 70..needle just starts to move slowly to half way as I crest the hill (hill is 800/1000 yards long, not huge, not that steep but the type that reduces lorries to 50).

Why am I pushing her so hard? We tow a caravan and I want to make sure that under load, up a hill she isn't going to let me down. Some of the hills down cornwall way (A30/A391) require some heavy foot to get up . Also if you've ever been up fish hill in the Cotswolds! I don't know if this is an accurate representation or not but it seemed a good starting point and she has never gone past 11 o clock before (unless I wasn't taking enough notice of the needle, which I obviously am at them monemt) and I have worked her hard in the past.

The only things I can think are either
a. The new thermostat is crap and doesn't open properly or as much as it should (the pipe does get hot though)
b. I am unable to bleed her sufficiently
c. I am expecting too much of the old girl in the summer.

I am using the see saw bleed method consisting of:

Bleed Pipe in a jug of anti freeze, take bung out.
hold jug level with expansion tank
Remove expansion tank lid
start engine
idle for a while
start lowering the jug until it fills up (and obviously expansion tank is not emptying completely) and collect bubbles
raise jug until just enough coolant is covering the end of the pipe
repeat above until bubbles stop
slowly rev the engine up to 2k and hold(have to be careful here because it seems to suck the contents of the jug back into the engine therefore the jug has to be held a lot lower than the expansion tank to keep some in it (its a 1 litre jug).
keep it running like this for a while to get some heat in there.
take foot off throttle and repeat raising lowering of the jug.
repeat last two steps until the bottom hose is hot (not warm...hot)
By this time the bleed pipe is bloody hot to hold and some more smaller bubbles appear.
carry on a while longer until completely happy (40 mins or so have passed).
turn off engine, cool down jug with cold water and replace bung. Replace expansion cap. leave.
top up when cool if needed.
done

One thing to note, when it starts to heat up there are very very fine what appear to be air bubbles in the jug as you lower the jug and it begins to fill, could this simply be because the coolant is almost at boiling point and its not a problem?