39 replies to this topic

[Dan]

Do you normally run just water? Have you tried running without a cap? What does the coolant look like?

[purplesuit1]

Yes i usually just run water. Let me give just a bit of back story see if that helps. The engine seemed to run fine when i first had it in no boiling over or anything but i couldnt what temp it was at because my temp sending unit was bad. took the engine out of the car to service it and rebuilt the carb. When i rebuilt the engine i put a stage 1 kit on and replaced some gaskets and the temp sending unit. When i put it back in and got it running i adjusted the carb to what i believe correct ( the spark plugs look brown on top). I started it up today in a parking garage and it smells of fuel kind of and i noticed the parking garage fill up with a kind of white smoke. Not to thick but you can see it kind of come out of the muffler. I just tried running it without a cap the coolant to get any bubbles out but didnt help any. The water is very dirty like a brownish color. Hope some of this helps.

[KernowCooper]

This is not running retarded on the igniton by any chance? have you presure tested the system, which may show up a loss of pressure and help to rule out any leaks

[Cooperman]

Is the fan on the correct way around? On the wrong way and you lose about 20% of cooling air going through radiator.

[purplesuit1]

I do not have a pressure tester so i cannot test that. And how can i check if the ignition is retarded? Also, i have checked the the fan to see if it was on the correct way but not sure if it is on correctly. How can i tell if it is on the right way or not?

Thanks for the input

[KernowCooper]

This shape of the fan blade faces the radiator (
And you check the dynamic timing with a timing light at a certain engine rev, what is the engine size/year ? not in your first post?

[purplesuit1]

It is a 1981 998 A engine. The fan is correctly positioned and i havent been able to check the timing yet.

[Badboytunes]

white smoke, overheating......?

Sounds like it could be head gasket failure......

[Earwax]

Hi purplesuit .

is the system losing any water? I would run it to temp (just under red on your gauge), let it overflow as per usual and then let it cool and then check the water level. Overflow could just be the rubber seal on underside of radiator cap- test with a known good one.

[purplesuit1]

I was also thinking i could be a blown head gasket but it seems to be running ok so i am not sure. I dont have any other symptoms of a blown head gasket either. No creamy liquid on the top of the rocker cover, no water in the oik etc. And Earwax it doesnt seem to be loosing water, the only place it is loosing water is through the overflow line because i do not have a overflow tank.

Edited by purplesuit1, 22 March 2013 - 12:19 PM.

[purplesuit1]

Bump

Could a bad voltage stabilzer be affecting the temp gauge and not the fuel gauge?

Edited by purplesuit1, 22 March 2013 - 07:12 PM.

[Dan]

Not normally, they both run off the same stabiliser terminal.

Head gasket failures in Minis fairly rarely show the 'classic' signs such as mayo in the rocker box in my experience. If you have a leak of coolant into a cylinder then you will get a haze of white steam and overheating but not necessarily any mixing of oil and water. I would suggest though that you should flush the thing out quite thoroughly and see if it still overheats. Rust in the water jacket is not good for cooling efficiency which is why you add anti freeze to the water.

[purplesuit1]

Ok, so i flushed the cooling system by putting a hose into the radiator and pushing water through where the temp sending unit goes. did that for about 2 minutes and filled it up with some new water. Ran it hard a bit and noticed it not as high as it usually is but still noticeably high. I looked at the water again and its just as dirty as it was before. Its a dirty rust color. Also noticed my fan belt squeaking quite a bit. My fan seems to be spinning fine but is it possible the belt is bad so it is not turning the fan and water pump fast enough? Also, how would i go about checking if i am getting water in the cylinder? Thanks for all the help, i very much appreciate it!

[Badboytunes]

If ypour water is still a dirty rusty colour, it sounds like you could have blocked waterways internally somewhere. This is because its run with just water!.

I would repeat the flushing process a few times, even go as far as removing the rad from the car and flushing that outside.

[Dan]

You need to flush it properly, open one of the main hoses and flush it through thoroughly flowing water in the reverse of the normal direction. You won't have been getting a lot of flow through it the way you were doing it. You may need to run it with some coolant flush in it as well but if you can't make it run without overheating you won't be able to yet.