Coolant alarm

[Bongoplotter]

Coolant alarm has been blipping on and off for a few days and then sounded quite insistently when driving home tonight.....until I used the brake when it immediately went off! This happened several times but each time the braking silenced it. Coolant level seems fine and there have been no damp patches underneath. Any ideas, folks? Many thanks

[mikeonb4c]

Coolant alarm has been blipping on and off for a few days and then sounded quite insistently when driving home tonight.....until I used the brake when it immediately went off! This happened several times but each time the braking silenced it. Coolant level seems fine and there have been no damp patches underneath. Any ideas, folks? Many thanks

New sensor screws have meant mine only does this occasionally (just a murmur but...). But it still does it now and then and as you say, doing something electrical (like dabbing the brakelights on) stops it. Confusing though for a tinnitus sufferer like me

[Bongoplotter]

Thanks Mike. Thought it must be another electrical wonder!

[haydn callow]

Sounds as though the coolant is a little low......put a cup of premixed coolant in the tank....or just water.
And then report back.......sounds as though it's sloshing about an when you put the brake n the coolant sloshes forward and covers the sensor screw.
If you put a dry stick vertically down into the tank it should show about 2 cams of depth of coolant

[mikeonb4c]

Sounds as though the coolant is a little low......put a cup of premixed coolant in the tank....or just water.
And then report back.......sounds as though it's sloshing about an when you put the brake n the coolant sloshes forward and covers the sensor screw.
If you put a dry stick vertically down into the tank it should show about 2 cams of depth of coolant

Might another possibility be if the coolant mix is too weak and/or too old?

[haydn callow]

Could be but the fact it's switches the alarm off when braking points to low coolant

[mikeonb4c]

Could be but the fact it's switches the alarm off when braking points to low coolant

If his problem is like mine, I think it's not the braking/deceleration but the brake lights drawing current that (coincidentally) stops the false alarm. Its as though it relieves an electrical capacitance effect. I seem to recall achieving the same result by (for example) switching the side/head lights on momentarily. New sensor screws have all but fixed mine, but it still has the occasional murmur, which because if its high pitch and low volume I mistake for tinnitus until / unless I see the light start to glow dimly.

[haydn callow]

Drawing heavy current would if anything cause the alarm to sound.....this is the opposite....
And it's the simplest to try first......top it up and see what happens, if it doesn't work we can move on.

[mikeonb4c]

Drawing heavy current would if anything cause the alarm to sound.....this is the opposite....
And it's the simplest to try first......top it up and see what happens, if it doesn't work we can move on.

Mine is topped up fine. As I said, it feels more like it is releasing capacitance rather than a heavy current draw, but this is all guesswork. Its a v minor/occasional thing anyway and doesn't diminish the undoubted value of the LCA. It could well be that after 9 years my wiring/earthing is not as good as it was when I installed the LCA. Its on my round tuit list, but not high up on it!

[Gasy]

Mine used to do that
Turned out to be a loose cable connection to the screw in the header tank
Tightened and all ok since

[mikeonb4c]

Mine used to do that
Turned out to be a loose cable connection to the screw in the header tank
Tightened and all ok since

Cheers Gasy. Having fitted new screws I can probably eliminate that one. But there are the other connections of course. And since I went for a neat installation involving putting the warning light in the instrument binnacle next to the engine temp gauge, checking everything could be fiddly (i did the job so long ago I can remember nothing about how I did it!). But, since mine only murmours about once every fortnight and stops as soon as I dab the brake light on, it really isn't an issue.