Blocked rad?

A cheap way to clean out the cooling/heater system is to add a litre of the liquid fabric wash stuff. The sort like Aerial Rapid that you'd put in your washing machine. Get the cheap stuff from Kwiksave/Nettos etc and add it to your rad, run the car for a couple of days then drain it and flush it out, repeat as necessary. I've done this to a succession of Capri's (not noted for their heaters and especially prone to the heater matrix fouling-up) and they are fine after this treatment.

HTH

Nigel

A blocked rad should ensure lots of heat in the car as the coolant can't be, eeer, cooled. Assuming there's no airlocks then it sounds more like a dead thermostat.

Washing powders and liquids contain rather a lot of salt (ionic surfactants etc)

Personally I don't want to add that amount of salt to my car, or as fast as I can say "heater matrix" it will be corroding expensive bits of my cooling system.

-- James

Which is true but you're going to flush it out afterwards.

Flush it very, very thoroughly. Is that enough "very"s ?

-- James

Yep I'd agree with that

Na, it takes three times for luck!

-- Peter Hill Spamtrap reply domain as per NNTP-Posting-Host in header Can of worms - what every fisherman wants. Can of worms - what every PC owner gets!

Back to why this thread started.....

It was the thermostat - flushed the system for good measure - ( using the real stuff, sorry guys ) and the old girl's fine now.

cheers

Ian

It's a few pence cheaper than the stuff for clothes too.

____

I'd agree with that. I've had blocked rads on both my old Sierra and a Kawasaki GPZ500 motorbike. Symptoms were identical - engine will run at correct-ish temperature when idling or driving slowly. When working a bit harder (i.e. hard acceleration or sustained motorway speeds), it runs too hot.

Dan