Overheating and whining noise

[loftustowncrier]

Hi all,

We've been extremely diligent at checking coolant levels since getting the Bongo, but have now succumbed to the dreaded overheating problem. It wouldn't surprise me if the cylinder head was cracked (diagnosis tomorrow). My question is has anyone else heard a whining noise coming from the expansion tank area? We suspected it was steam escaping from the expansion tank overflow pipe (almost sounds like the horn actually). The noise generally occurred when the needle (original temp gauge) moved from 11 o'clock to 12 o'clock. The needle would then go back down after a few seconds.

Learnt a few lessons this last week (including fit a coolant alarm - £1500 for a replacement head is a damn sight more expensive than an alarm, eh Haydn?)

[Doone]

Yes I've heard a noise like this. Unfortunately our gauge didn't 'go back down' and the noise got much worse, before the coolant errupted from the expansion tank (we knew it had head problems before this happened). Good luck with the diagnosis.

[loftustowncrier]

Hi, thanks for the response. Our coolant erupted too. How did you know there was a problem with the head before that though?

[kelv]

Best of luck with that !

[Doone]

How did you know there was a problem with the head before that though?

We knew the history of the Freda and it had overheated before we bought it, and we expected it to have problems. And it did... it's actually been quite interesting, experiencing an overheating episode 'first hand' rather than just seeing Allan fixing everything afterwards. It's worth pointing out that not all of them have problems after overheating, I guess it depends on how bad the initial 'overheat' was.