Overheating

I know nothing about the 300tdi, but sounds exactly like a stuck (now unstuck!) thermostat to me. Although I thought the heater is normally on the "engine side" of the thermostat so the heater should have had hot water. So now I'm not so sure....

Andrew

In news: snipped-for-privacy@k78g2000cwa.googlegroups.com, Ga wibbled :

Short of water?

Surely if it was short of water then it would just keep overheating??

I tend to think that it may be more along the lines of thermostat (or something else) sticking as Andrew said because all of a sudden hot air comes from heaters and tem gauge rapidly drops back down.

In news: snipped-for-privacy@v45g2000cwv.googlegroups.com, Ga wibbled :

Not necessarily, you can get a nice little airlock in the heater matrix, while the engine/radiator is full.

Check the strength of your antifreeze.

I also thought about an airlock just after I posted about sticky thermostat. I reckon its one or the other.

Or of course a blockage caused by ????

Andrew

Air lock. Bleed carefully and try again.

Er, why?

On or around 9 Feb 2007 02:30:56 -0800, "Ga" enlightened us thusly:

Coolant level low, check it pronto and watch it like a hawk.

It could be a gasket (such as the water pump or the P gasket or the thermostat housing, or it could be an early sign of head gasket going.

On or around Fri, 09 Feb 2007 11:43:50 GMT, "GbH" enlightened us thusly:

the 300 TDi is very prone to this if the coolant level is low. It only needs to be down an inch or so.

On or around Fri, 9 Feb 2007 17:11:40 -0000, "Rich B" enlightened us thusly:

could've been frozen somewhere.

If he'd just started, maybe - but if he's "doing a sensible motorway speed" I wouldn't have thought it likely an engine would develop a slush block unless he was driving in Siberia.

Are there any mods to monitor the coolant level that you know of?

On or around Sat, 10 Feb 2007 06:57:18 +0000, Graham Bowers enlightened us thusly:

erm... dunno. The sierra has a little float switch in the tank. I'm not sure if any of the RR classic/disco I family have 'em. in theory, it's not hard to do...

PRC7925 Water Level Sensor/Cap - Expansion Bottle - RRC from GA

fits the plastic expansion tanks (ESR63) fitted to most non-V8 Discovery I's, later Range Rover Classics, and Tdi Defenders.

Obvioulsy you'd have to wire up a light yourself.

The slight snag is they are £38.77 inc VAT each...... (ouch)

Richard

We've been here before. The plastic tank can take the float switch from the P38(?).

Thanks I popped up to Beamends this morning and came away with such a device. Cheers Graham

On or around Sat, 10 Feb 2007 13:06:10 +0000, beamendsltd enlightened us thusly:

IME the V8 discos have the same plastic tank.

I bet there's an unused coolant warning light position on the dash, too :-)

I'd never thought of that...........