reasons why my hijet was over heating, 1... 2... 3... 4... and more!

stevelav wrote:I can't find your green stat stuff but I guess the Halfords stuff -

Bars Flush Cooling System Cleaner
The Bars Flush Cooling System Cleaner removes limescale, rust and sludge, improving performance and maintaining the cooling system. Simply add to your radiator system, treats cooling systems up to 17 litres.

is probably ok for £5

Yes I think there are only a little modification of the percentage of chemicals between the different makes of additives.
I use green star one only because my mechanic (a friend that allow me to repair my cars in his garage) has that additive.

If he hadn't had an additive, I would have done the work with baking soda

I suggest the Fiat Paraflu11 because of some tests in my zone.

In any case, I avoid any cooling fluid like Elf (renault) that probabily has corrosive instead of anti-corrosive agents, we have a Clio that in six months has a coffee-like coloured coolant, filled with 50% elf coolant and 50% water, nad I avoid low-priced ones.

We like Paraflu not because it is italian (now all the Fiat Lubricants and fluids was made by Petronas, spain...), for example I avoid fiat selenia oils, but because it is a very good coolant.
I use it, the one that have to be diluited, in my porter at 50%.

its a bit hard to tell which coolant is best but this Paraflu you use seems to be of the 'red' type whuch is apparently Hybrid Organic Acid Technology (HOAT) and lasts up to 5 years.

Theres a red halfords one for £20 5l which should be similar i hope which I can add to my Halfords shopping list.

You can get a 5 litre red/pink antifreeze for about £15 at your local partco.

I use blue coolant (paraflu11).

I think it works well even on aluminum engines, Fiat uses it in all his engine before of the commercialization of the red one.

However it is the coolant that Piaggio suggest for my porter.

So, nice shiney head is back on with nice shiney gasket, so far so good, pipes are not getting hard, no bubbles into exps tank, did not over heat on way home after it had been left running for 1/2 hr before leaving, fan kicked in when I got home and left it running for a bit
It sounds a bit odd running now... Probably because I'd got so used to it not running properly before!
Didn't get pics of timing belt area as I couldn't get a clear shot the drawn picture is clearer than i could have got. but it didnt look difficult (my ex took over for a bit, off i went for wee and he just couldnt help himself! But my hands were frozen so didnt have much grip in them anyway!) I was surprised there was no new spring in the kit tho, I'm wondering if it should have had one?
So, the next week of driving will hopefully prove that that's an end to it, I have no desire to see inside my engine again!
I do have a few pics of the shiny head, I'll post later

nice smooth shiney head
as you can see it needed quite a skim! i hope it still works ok!



some of the gunk from bottom of water jacket

That looks impressively shiny!

And hopefully it'll work properly

So, so far all going well, I didn't make too much effort on the whole bleeding the cooling system thing, topped up from rad till it came out of exps pipe - put cap back on exps pipe, started engine then with a helper topping up from rad opened bleed valve and purged water and bubbles out, closed it up and closed rad up.
Had about 20ml air gap in exps pipe next day and today about a tea spoonful.

I do have a confession to make tho, I haven't changed the oil yet
I ran out of time so will be doing that and using flushing fluid stuff on Monday

well done to you Daisydon, you have worked hard to get the van right.

Waz

Cheers, and saved myself in excess of £400 by doing most of it myself, I can save that for buying the parts of the next bit that goes wrong

When you say you 'topped up from the rad till it came out of the expansion pipe' how did you manage this? Surely it would overflow from the rad before it reaches the expansion pipe?

No the expansion pipe is lower than the top o the rad, your is a 1.3 right? I don't know about the 998

You can Fill up via expansion pipe first then via rad, doesn't really matter as long as you fill up via rad after to purge a few bubbles out
If you look in through the windscreen you can see it overflowing and possibly a few bubbles comming out too, if your using a hose don't have it turned up to high or you might get it a bit wet in the cab!

Mine is a 993, and I think the expansion pipe is slightly lower than the rad cap.

Then maybe you need to fill from exps pipe and let it flow out of rad, I think rich has the 993, I seem to remember him saying there was a bleed valve at the top of the rad? So maybe you can have a hose in the rad and open the valve there to get any air out?
I didn't let much out, mainly cos I'm a skin flint and didn't want to waste coolant but also because I wanted to see if it really needed al the fuss to get the air out.... The answer is no it didn't, it basically purged the air out itself on the first drive

There is a bleed valve of sorts, a barbed pipe with a rubber cap over the end. so, hosepipe in the expansion pipe with something to seal it, what would you suggest?

Something like that yes, but really you don't want to fill it from the tap, pre mix your coolant up into some form of container which you can connect a bit of hose pipe up too. I use a watering can.

If you are stuck, if you get some standard hose pipe and wrap loads of insulation tape or gaffer tape round it you can up-size it to fit snugly in the filler neck (where the pressure cap is under the passenger seat).

I realize that daisy doesn't believe in the heavy bleeding method, but for a fivers worth of coolant (antifreeze) wasted its a small price to pay for getting the system more air free quicker. I heavily bleeding the system and it still took about 4 days driving it every day to totally purge the very last bits of air out.

I also don't like getting coolant in the road, don't wanna kill my dogs or the local cats, it's very attractive to animals (it's like sugar water) and deadly, will kill them if they lick it up, so be sure to really flush with fresh water if it gets in the road or driveway
I must be quite lucky on the air front then, mine only really needed a top up the next day

Oh, but don't let the council see you doing it or you could get done for polluting the waterways

It attracts wasps like fizzy drinks too, mid october and the wasps still find me covered in antifreeze. I am scared to death of them ever since I get stung in the scrotum when I was about 8 years old

So engine flush and new oil... I swear I heard it sigh in relaxation!!!
Sounds lovely now...
I have however found a few more problems one of which is the radiator is leaking a little, no surprise there, the other issues I will post new threads as I'm gonna need some advice!

Did you adjust the tappets/valve lash?

I've started writing a Hijet over heating guide for the website - wish I hadn't started as its a bloody big subject when you start talking about all the different components and their functions.

Oooh! What now?

no didnt do tappets or valve lash (whats that?!!)
thought the tappets might need doing but it sounds good so not gonna mess

its much quieter now, so quiet i could hear something else that didnt sound right - narrowed it down to the altanator bearings, least of my problems at the moment its only slight wear, i seem to be able to hear any anomoly before anybody else, think thats why i get a few odd looks when i take my vehicle to a garage and say,,, "can you hear that... that, there, cant you hear it, its not right you know!"
and i have no stereo so ive nothing else to listen to while driving

See, since I've fitted a stereo I can now resolutely ignore any problems I have until the wheels fall off and I'm left stranded in the middle of the M25.

"What's that officer? My van is unroadworthy? I couldn't tell you either way, Terry Wogan was talking too loudly."

thought id give a update on this.... its over a year and still working great  no rad leaks now, that stopped after a bit
the only issue mechanical wise is a small oil leak, i top it up to max before a medium journey and by 200 miles its back to minimum mark, not too fussed about this at mo, just keeping an eye on the level, the leak must be half way up (yes probably hg!) but in every day use there is no loss of oil, if i do a long journey (more than 200 miles) without topping up it gets a bit low, so i just top up first

Common for the rocker covers to leak oil, often there is small crack in the rocker cover where people have been heavy handed on the little 10mm nuts.

daisydon wrote:some of the gunk from bottom of water jacket

Hi daisy, I'm tackling my HG at the mo, it's great having yours as a reference. I have the same rusty scum as yours in the water jacket, did you manage to clean off all of it before reassemble?
I think mine's a mixture of rust & k seal resembling varnish. After a day of scrubbing with brake cleaner I'm looking for alternatives...
I don't want this scum to start breaking up later & blocking my new radiator. I sound paranoid I know, but if anyone has a suggestion I'd be chuffed.

As it was...


getting there...

i manualy scraped out as much as i could and used a hose to flush the loose bits out, when it was all put back together i flushed it out a few times, thes is still some stuff floating about in the system but its not caused any problems, good luck :-)

just incase anyone is interested... still working done a few long journeys this year, last one in november my regular trip to cornwall and back.. this time i didnt break any bones and was able to drive myself back
just need to stop the bodywork rusting now before it gets out of hand!

daisydon wrote:i manualy scraped out as much as i could and used a hose to flush the loose bits out:-)

Know that feeling, I had an Indian on Saturday night...... 


So yer still here ? 

Logi wrote:Know that feeling, I had an Indian on Saturday night...... 

Poor girl!

Glad it's still going strong, Daisy. Obviosuly a job well done, done well.