Hi from Warwickshire!

Hi Guys,

My name is Piotr, I live in Warwickshire and I'm Anonymous Hijetoholic. Currently I'm in the middle of buying '06 1.3EFI beast. The van I'm buying will need a bit of attention (head gasket failure because of overheating). I'll try to document whole process of bring Dajsu back to live on my youtube channel (same name as my nick here). I hope we will all enjoy them!

Welcome

I hope you know what youre doing regarding the headgasket.
Its nothing like a tipical car...  its not "a bit of attention" in most cases

i subscribed to youre channel , nice cat btw

Hi,

Many thanks for the subscription - they are the best motivation

In terms of head gasket - I don't have much experience with any Daihatsu - but I'm optimistic and I hope I will not let you and myself down!

if you are cat lover - there is actually two of them, I wanted to paste link to special episode from my polish sub-channel (I'm from Poland originally) where they test grip of the new epoxy floor in my garage* but I'm too fresh to the forum to do that**

*My Mrs. allowed me to have Hijet under the condition that she will not have to see it on the driveway, so I had to make space in the garage. During the process I decided I'll refresh it so it's neat when the Daihatsu actually arrives. There will be short series about garage makeover on my channel as well.

Well, I could be tempted to give you a few pointers if you are going to video it.

No not realy a cat person but i liked the way it looked in the video.
I have a pug
I dont know if you have seen the whole section of this forum regarding overheating?
Its the number one problem regarding hijets.
There are numerous causes why a hijet overheats ,bad radcaps,headgasket,air in the system,fan not working,rusted metal pipe in the coolingsystem,thermostat,rad no good,bad hose clips,not bleeding it the correct way etc etc

with a regular car you can skim the head put a new gasket on and your done
a hijet is a whole other story..
If youre lucky Higlyjetted will help you out a litle.
But i would start with reading trough the overheating section on the forum to get more detailed info about the problem.

@HighlyJetted -thank you for the offer, when I actually get the van, I'll take few pictures, create my plan of action and get back to you to get more feedback. I understand in case of headgasket/ overheating problem it's not just about new gasket but the root cause will need to be found and removed but that's what CSI in CSI motors stands for (Car Scene Investigation)

@Scotia
I did have a look at "buying Hijet - guide for dummies" by HighlyJetted and I shouldn't probably buy this particular one

To be honest with you, I think this is going to be the least sensible car purchase in my life:
1. I haven't even seen the van live and yet I agreed to buy it (I know it's lame)
2. I know Hijets have problems with overheating and I buy one that overheats 
..and still I have gut feeling that I'm not going to regret it  

On the other hand, It's not mega expensive (£400 and the guy will take my bike in PX*), the bodywork seems to be in good shape (current owner sent me images of underbody as well), In worse case I will break it for spares but hopefully that will not need to happen.

The whole concept of the Car Scene Investigation is to show people how to eliminate guess work when working with the cars. I want to show how to define the suspects and collect evidence to be 100% sure who is the guilty one*. So, what may seem as very ridiculous purchase will be actually perfect source of content for the YT and good fun for me. 


*the bike needs to be registered in UK, hence the delay with Hijet delivery

well at least you came to the right place here
there are a lot of helpfull guys on here who know a lot about hijets.
have you seen the links to the manuals section? a lot of good info in there
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B_uqxfTpiDWoOXh1RzBUR0lsUVE?usp=sharing

CSI Motors wrote:@HighlyJetted -thank you for the offer, when I actually get the van, I'll take few pictures, create my plan of action and get back to you to get more feedback. I understand in case of headgasket/ overheating problem it's not just about new gasket but the root cause will need to be found and removed but that's what CSI in CSI motors stands for (Car Scene Investigation)
I did have a look at "buying Hijet - guide for dummies" by HighlyJetted and I shouldn't probably buy this particular one

To be honest with you, I think this is going to be the least sensible car purchase in my life:                
THIS IS JUST THE START!!!!
1. I haven't even seen the van live and yet I agreed to buy it (I know it's lame)
2. I know Hijets have problems with overheating and I buy one that overheats 
..and still I have gut feeling that I'm not going to regret it  

Its always the same old with Hijets.
I'm so past Hijets nowadays, they are something I spent alot of time involved in, but for the last 4 years I have washed my hands of them.
A clean van that's an over heater can be a good buy. As long as the resolution is accurate and efficient.
I actually run a business that specialises in automotive fault finding, diagnostics, and ECU repairs.
So I know the motor industry possibly better than most, maybe that is a brave statement.
Sub contracting for every garage in the area I see it all good and bad. I am very much in demand, but many garages I will not associate with.
Hijets have a very unique coolant system, it has quirks that I have never come across on any other vehicle or machine.
If you master the Hijet coolant system, you will become become 100 times more capable of coolant system expertise than most in the garage industry.
Most cars have quite a forgiving coolant system, a little weep or vac leak or air lock here or there causes no mal effects other than slow header tank loss.
In a Hijet, a minor coolant system flaw results in an hour in a layby.
And the metal passenger seat cover covered in brown poo water.
I owe a great deal to Hijets, breaking them and fixing a few put me in a financial position to start Auto Fault Finder, and Auto Fault Finder lead me into the HaldexRepairs.co.uk business, which is a pretty solid industry.
If I can give some experience back I will, before I forget it all! Thus if you are vlogging stuff maybe this is good opportunity.

Good luck.

Welcome back, your views and help are always welcome on here even if you do t have or want a hijet these days.

@Scotia-many thanks for the link! I'm actually in the process of reading through the forum and i found the initial topic with the link today as well. But there is so much staff here it will take me a while to scan through everything, so help like this is really appreciated.

@HighlyJetted-I did have a look at your business' webpage and also on facebook of Auto Fault Finder and I need to admit I'm impressed. Are you self learner? Market is full of people whose diagnostic capabilities are limited to reading fault codes with obd scanners and then replacing random parts based on a guesswork but you are definitelly not one of them my ultimate goal is to run side business of similar profile to yours - fault finding with "no win, no fee" approach which I thought would be fair approach for startup in this industry (i hate those fault code reseters who charge only for reseting the codes but not fixing the issue).

With regards my vlogging-i'm aware my videos are not the best ones on youtube. They maybe a bit trival for more experienced people. i'm not showmen so they are a bit dull, i hate my voice (but hey that's the only one i have) and English is not my first language. So the only way i can do decent stuff is to get quality content - and if you are happy to share your knowledge, I will be really happy to use it to boost quality of my videos and learn somethin new.

BTW.
I have received documents for the bike that i'm part exchanging for the Hijet. The plan is to finalise the deal and bring Dajsu home on 19th of May

CSI Motors wrote:The plan is to finalise the deal and bring Dajsu home on 19th of May

stop while you still can.. its not to late to buy a non overheating hijet

it was higlyjetted who collected 80% of those files, ive just added to them and downloaded them.
he was getting tyred of hijets and i was afraid the files would get lost in time.
i have set up the microvan mini truck club on facebook and share the files there and on numerous other pages as wel.
they have helped lots of people

Hi Guys,

As per the plan i brought the van home yesterday. I'm writing from my phone and struggle to add any photos but I will upload some tommorow. The van isn't perfect but structrurally it looks very sound (only some surface rust). Previous owner "forgot" to tell me about big crack on windscreen but other than that it is as i expected for £400 van. Cylinder bore and the head look sound (no signs of leaking coolant, bores don't have any wear edge etc., honning can be clearly seen with no scratches along cylinder axis. So it looks like the head shouldn"t have been even touched. I did however remove pressure cap from under the passanger seat and it looks that some really bad coolant has been used (lot of rusty/limestone deposit), sit of the cap was also full of dirt so it looks that it could have been one of the reasons of overheating. Therefore first thing I will do after putting head back in place will be descalling of the system.

On top of that lhs front tyre seems to have uneven wear (no thread on the outside). It looks like there is something wrong with the camber (do yo think it can be one of those links that go towards dront of the van).

As i said I will upload some photos here tommorow, so you can have better look. So far I fallen in love with my Dajsu, and it seems that with little bit of love it will be great motor

You didn’t mention the van was a non runner and half stripped. Take the chance now to flush all the waterways, rad, etc, replace rad caps, clean rad cap seats, then fill it with correct coolant, bleed it ‘correctly’ then see how it runs.

Yes, I bought it with head off. I wonder how "mechanics" feel when they tell their customers head gasket is gone, they take it off and it turns to be ok? I also read about the problems Buffy54 is facing with lying bastards that call themselves mechanics. stories like this make me want to go to Swansea and give them good slap.

Anyway, going back to Dajsu and the tyre wear. What is worrying me is that it only happens on one side (however driver's side tyre could have been replaced). Anybody had issue with camber setting (it looks that there is no adjustment on the strut). When the engine is started I will take it for spin and see how it behaves (maybe worn control arm bushes?). I appreciate the fact that I'm not able to give you many symptoms but maybe some of the forum Oldboys have met with this problem before and can give few hints?

With regards to coolant flash - I was thinking about putting the head back, connecting everything back together and than filling it with some descaler. Than I would run the engine till it warms up (but not for particularly long) and drain the mess, fit new caps and fill with distilled water (maybe will take it for a bit longer spin with only water in to see if any issue with overheating appears and finally fill it with fresh coolant. Anybody had any issues with descaler eating any part of Hijet's cooling system?

They all scrub the outside edge of the passenger tyre.
Its because of roundabouts being clockwise and the give way to the right rule.
It's not something you can fix, more like a design feature.

Haha, really? I noticed that during reversing with quite big lock, it wanted to pull the tyre off the rim. It looks that Daihatsu enginneers didn't hear about Ackerman geometry :p

Do yo think it would be worth doing wheel alignment or i just need to accept it?

It looks that the Hijets are full of design features!

Ackerman is all about compromise when it comes to maximum steering angle. My late model Lexus does the same thing.

Hi,
I finally got round to upload the photos:

Externally it looks nice van. That head looks as if it needs a good surface clean but can’t see any corrosion to speak off. No on the other hand that rad cap and seat could be the reason it was spitting coolant out and not because it was a head gasket. Think someone may have jumped the gun a little! Replace those caps now! The worst I have seen so far...well nearly! You need to clean up the seat as well so it has a nice clean surface to seal to then the engine can build pressure instead of forcing it out into the expansion bottle as soon as it warms up. I found a tap resurface tool fits nicely into the seat area and if carefully done will clean up the corrosion back to a nice flat surface. Key work is carefull as it’s only thin metal. Clean it up first with a wire rotary brush then face it. The tool isn’t expensive either, I fortunately had one. You could have dodged the bullet with this one! Bet you can flush it all out, clean it up, bleed it and away it will go

As for the tyres, I found mine did scrub, but alingnment was out on one side, had it done and checked and been fine since, even wear on both sides now.

Boil the thermostat with a thermometer, see if it pops when it should.

Pressure test the radiator.

Hi Gents,

Many thanks for all the hints. I will get the alignent checked when the engine is working again. with regards to termostat, is there no OBDII port in those vans? Mine is '06 so in theory it should have one? I'm a bit lazy and was going to use method that i used in episode #1 on my channel - OBD scanner + android app to read engine coolant temp + temp sensor on top radiator hose to see when thermostat is opening.

BTW. When i boiled termostat of my 307 it exploded (not really exploded but decided to jump out of casing). You can see the event by end of Episode #1 on my channel

https://youtu.be/psh8wZ09E1c

PS. Audio is a bit shite but i was on very steep section of learning curve at that time

If thermostat is anything like the rad cap then just throw it away and dont bother testing it. Doing so much work why waste a few pence, get a new one. Plenty of info on this site on which are good ones to get.
Your van should have a diagnostic port but which version I have no idea.

I have boiled up probably 200 thermostats over the years. Never had any incidents.

But letting the item touch the bottom of the pan is dangerous, the metal base of the pan will be far hotter than the water as it is the heat exchanger between cooker and water.

Yes 06 plate is obd2 compliant, if the plug is missing you can tap directly into the K line at the ECU multi plug.

Also your technique in the video for measuring the thermostat function is fundamentally flawed, what if the water pump wasn't pumping, what if it was air locked, what if the cylinder head temperature sensor is not a real world value.

Raggy wrote:If thermostat is anything like the rad cap then just throw it away and dont bother testing it. Doing so much work why waste a few pence, get a new one.

I actually test every new one before I fit them, as I have had a fair few new ones that don't work properly.

Hi HighlyJetted,

to some extend I agree with you, i never said that my methods will work in 100% of the cases and I will never say it - car world is too big to have one method that would fit all cases. On the other hand. I could say the same about boiling thermostats - I boiled mine and it broke the housing which probably wasn't designed to cope with load while not mounted to the engine block. and even before it broke i couldn't clearly see when it started to open (so boiling may not be perfect for thermostats that open too early.

you make fair point about water pump and air lock - I will add comment under the video that the system should be bleed first before using this method.

Good point I see about my proposed method is that you don't have to break seals and do unnecessary bleeding and you should have definitive answer in case your thermostat is stuck open/stuck closed. With early opening, temperature sensor reading may introduce an error, I agree with you. However in case of my mate's car we found the senor was faulty using this method, as it was giving funny reading (ex. reading was below zero while ambient temp was +15)

Finally it will not work with cars that have no OBD ports, but then you can use two thermometer, after and before the thermostat (if they would fit).

I hope you get my point that there is no universal method that will fit all cases.

HighlyJetted wrote:

Raggy wrote:If thermostat is anything like the rad cap then just throw it away and dont bother testing it. Doing so much work why waste a few pence, get a new one.

I actually test every new one before I fit them, as I have had a fair few new ones that don't work properly.

Good to see you back HJ, your knowledge is very welcome. I agree about checking the new one, just think testing an old one based on the state of the rad cap was a waste of time, better spent getting a new one you know isn’t going to fail once you put it all back together because of age,

CSI Motors: Take a pic of the thermostat when you remove it so we can see the state...if there is one actually in!

If a thermostat housing breaks when exposed to 100 degree fluid, it will break every time you thrash the car hard or come to a stop start conditions after high speed use. Cylinder head outlet temp often makes it way upto and beyond 105 degrees under heavy load conditions.

Boiling thermostats doesn't break them. Putting them in contact with the pan does. You boil them in a basket or something obviously!! In your video example, the water was not hot enough yet to fully open the valve - expect to start opening around 78 to 84 degrees for most vehicles and fully open by 88 - while your video its far from boiling water - not going to cook spaghetti just yet.

And that Peugeot thermostat needs the aluminium face of the cylinder head there to give the spring load opposing structure. It was beyond risky trying that experiment, i'd actually say it was doomed from the outset.

Don't let this put you off heat testing any all metal standard traditional thermostats. It's been done since the dawn of time, even my great grand farther was doing that back in the day. The peugeot units wasn't a thermostat - it was a plastic thermostat housing and thermostat all in one modern disposable thing.