Bongo Fury

I had a slowly developing head gasket leak, with increasing coolant loss over a period of a year or so.

I got to a point where i was losing a litre of coolant every 200 miles ish.

I have only ever used red OAT coolant.

I put steel seal in a month ago. Immediatley stopped coolant loss.

I have a TM2 fitted that has undoubtedly saved my van countless times, with the low coolant warning, and temperarture never straying above 93' with sensor on rear of the block, as usual.

Steel seal seems to have worked, after 500 miles of driving, motorway, and lots of urban. However operating temperature has risen to 93 on average, running up to 100 ish, 97 on motorway cruising at 70.

Should say van is a 2.5TD.

Has anyone actually had a Steel Seal fix that has lasted? Asking this because the forum is covered in stories of disasters!

I have replaced the stat which did have some deposits on it, but not excessive.

a faulty leaking water pump may give you the same symptoms, the pump has 2 leak points, viewed from the front, one at 10 past and 1 at 6 oclock. the 1 at 10 past is visible from the passy side, the 1 at 6 oclock is hidden behind the crank pulley, so if it leaks its hard to see.
steal seal may seal this for a while then fail later.
you may just have a leaking water pump that is going undetected.
this would allow a small amount of water out, and air in. .

tried steal seal twice, and it worked for a couple of weeks dependant on miliage, but did fail eventually.

Thanks for quick response. Pretty certain it was HGF, as white smoke was very evident and increased over the period i described. There was no sign of coolant loss around water pump, although i suppose it could have been evaporating?

Coolant did seem a bit gloopy when i bled system after the stat change, but it seems to be running fine, in fact pretty smoothly.

I am going to take it to France next week, and i am debating whether i should do a coolant system flush, and put new coolant in? But very aware that his might reopen the leak.

The van has had a new cylinder head, fitted by a well experienced Bongo mechanic prior to my buying in July 09, ive since done 70k km, but i suspect the overheat that meant this was required may have done more lasting damage thus the reoccurence, who knows?