Moderator: Ian
rustyp wrote:Hi there, in place of the usual bleed pipe in have a new pipe exiting underneath the front of the centre console, I have an on/off valve there. The pipe slopes gradually upwards and through a vent near the blower fan and then the pipe goes through a small hole in the plastic and into a T-piece connecting it to the heater pipe just before the header tank.
Basically when the valve is open coolant can run from the header tank to the head and air up to the tank. To fill system with coolant I topped up header tank and refilled running in stages, squeezing pipes as per normal and then I went for a gentle drive stopping and topping up as needed.
I can drive along and bleed the system by turning the valve. I can even drive along for a long way with the valve open with no problems.
That seems like a brilliantly simple / elegant solution and i can't think why Mazda didn't design it like that in the first place! 
Try ImgBB.comYears ago I used to use photobucket but that is now a pay site. Anyone got any suggestions?
Excellent. I'm spiralling earthwards with me tail feathers shot off. A kit could well be worth considering to get rid of this tedious (and costly in time if someone is being paid to do it, and maybe not properly!) chore.rustyp wrote:Hi Mike, in my previous Bongo I had rusty water stains in the cab from spurting boiling water!!!
Firstly I can say in practice it works, a couple days after filling and bleeding I was on a drive and thought I would try the valve, the engine was hot, I heard a tiny bubbly "burp" there was a little bit of air still trapped in the system probably worked its way up from the rear heater matrix, without this system it would probably been the case that this little bit of air wouldn't have been purged.
The valve/pipe stays cold but when turned for bleeding the pipe gets hot due to the coolant flow (I will cover in pipe lagging).
Because the header tank is at the highest point, my easy bleed pipe slopes up towards the header tank then that is where the air travels to. Also the air in the engine is hot and expands (high pressure) and migrates to the cooler (low pressure) area being the header tank.
I have considered putting together a kit consisting of a length of 10mm coolant hose, a valve, a T-piece, jubilee clips, grommets and pipe lagging with detailed instructions including where to drill the 2 holes etc. (one in metal, one in plastic). It would be quite low cost.
