8 replies to this topic

[pikey7]

I think I may be going mad!

On stripdown, I forgot to take note of where the water hoses connected in, thinking it would be simple enough. However I have a problem.

I have 3 outlets from the engine. One from the bottom hose take-off pipe, one from the sandwich plate, and one from the top side of the water pump. Yet there are only two places to go with the pipes. Heater in, and heater out. The head is a later one without the outlet down from the thermostat side and with the blocked off head-heater tap (tap is inline).

Normally I'd assume that I have the wrong waterpump, and the outlet on there should be a blocked one, but it came with the engine, and there were definately no leaks!

So, am I going mad? Are there 3 places to connect these hoses to?

It's a 1992 sprite 1275 carb'd engine by the way.

[Grayedout]

You obviously haven't put it back together yet then.......the outlet from the top of the water pump connects to the bypass hose in the bottom of the head !!

This then leaves two connections for the heater pipes !!!

[pikey7]

Nil points for you sir! I have no outlet in the head (as I posted!)

But thanks for playing!

[Grayedout]

Then you need to plug that hole in the top of the water pump. Water pumps only have two outlets.....main feed from the radiator and smaller vertical pipe which connects to the bypass hose on the underside of the head below the thermostat !

Also check the water pump hole is not already plugged because the blockage consists of a clear silicon sealant that fills the inside of the pipe and can be hard to spot !

[pikey7]

That was my thinking aswell, but I'm sure it wasn't blocked off before (it was connected to something, I still have the hose, but I just can't figure out what!)

There's not an extra inlet on the later rad or something is there? It's buried under a pile of stuff in the garage loft at the moment!

Oh, and it's definately not blocked, I used that bit to hang it up to paint it!

[pikey7]

O jeez!

I just had another look, and I've now seen a smaller pipe off of the top themostat housing! Does this one go to the pipe in the rad neck (the overflow?)

I suppose the easy way, is has anyone got a decent top pic of the engine bay of a ca.1992 car?

[Will]

Do you mean the small vacuum pipes in the sandwich plate? (The pipes under the top hose oni the pic)

[Dan]

Are you sure the small outlet on the 'stat housing is drilled? On lots of cars it isn't, it's pretty much only there because it's the same housing from a Metro. If it is then it's meant to connect to the expansion tank under the wing (or on the bulkhead crossmember, depending on model). All A+ 1275s should have a water pump without a bypass port. If yours really is opened up then someone's possibly swaped the pump in the past. A cap for the port is available as part no. CAM4126 which needs to be secured with a fuel hose type clip.

Without knowing axactly which model you have it's hard to describe the coolant layout as it's been done many different ways, especially during the trasition to injection.

[pikey7]

Will, thanks for the pic. The vacuum pipes I have sorted, but those pipes in the pic don't actually connect to the thermo-housing, they run to the carbon filter in the wing.

Dan, This thing is all very strange! I guess, as you say, someone had fitted an early pump at some point. It also didn't have a reservoir fitted, and the hole in the thermo-housing is open!

My guess then is that they connected up the upper pump outlet to the thermostat outlet, in effect creating the water tight system, and then connected the two heater pipes from the lower hose and sandwich late respectively as "standard". A bit of a bodge by all accounts!.

Right then, I guess I need to work out if i'm gonna fit an MPI rad, and use the upper thermo-housing pipe, and change water pumps (I have a habit of blowing those up recently, so it might be worth changing to the correct one just to be sure), or, well actually, there is no or. That's it then!

Thanks for your help guys.