A Little Help Needed Please!

[Guest itshowiplay]

Now I will start by mentioning that I feel as if I have sold out a little as when I got my 1988 205GTI I said it would never leave! Well the chance came along to get a really nice 309 Goodwood and the only way the wife would let me was to get rid of the 205 - so that was that! (I did consider divorcing her but after only six months thats a bit unfair! )

 

So first things first, the rad fan isnt working - common issue? any pointers on trouble shooting?

 

Secondly the water is looking like a poorly brewed tea (the oil is still good) but I guessing as a precaution I should change the head gasket? Now I have never done this before but I am competent and confident with my tool box - so the question is can anyone help with a brief guideline as to what I got to watch for and the essential pointers to do it right? I am assuming this is a straight forward enough task or am I wrong?

 

Many thanks in advance for any tips! D

 

[DrSarty 100 1 Cars]

Welcome to the forum.

 

You might not think the following particularly helpful, but it really is.

 

Rad Fan> This issue is covered so many times on here, I'm sure if you do a Google search* on this forum with 'rad fan problem' you'll see what I mean. In short it's usually down to a failed thermoswitch in the rad, a blown fan or a wiring fault. All of these are really easy to fix. The threads you find will show you how to test progressively and locate the component which is knackered.

 

Head Gasket> Get a Haynes manual. Save yourself £14 and download it from M@tt's signature on here. It'll talk you through the whole process, which isn't bad considering the engine bay on the 309 is a little bigger. The Haynes will have all of the sequences and torque settings too.

 

Best of luck. Come back if you really get stuck with something specific.

 

*Here's a guide.

Edited July 9, 2010 by DrSarty

[Daviewonder 533 3 Cars]

Secondly the water is looking like a poorly brewed tea (the oil is still good) but I guessing as a precaution I should change the head gasket? Now I have never done this before but I am competent and confident with my tool box - so the question is can anyone help with a brief guideline as to what I got to watch for and the essential pointers to do it right? I am assuming this is a straight forward enough task or am I wrong?

 

 

Is it worth changing the head gasket just for piece of mind? Is it not possible that the water looks like this due to not being changed in a while and/or not having any/mixed anti freeze colours? I would do some checks before changing the head gasket myself.

[2-Pugs 57]

Quite frankly I'd leave the head gasket alone unless you know for certain that it's gone. The headbolts are notorious for seizing and snapping as you loosen them, leaving you a block with a bit of busted bolt in it. There are ways to get around that of course, but you'll be wishing you'd left it alone if there was not really anything wrong with it in the first place.

 

If you really must change it just take your time and follow the Haynes manual and jump on here for help. There's nothing especially difficult, but it's still a fairly major job.

 

Flush the coolant out a couple of times, use some proprietry flush stuff. As Daviewonder says it's worth doing. It sounds to me like it hasn't been changed in a while. Get it flushed and changed, and redo it every year or more often until you eventually end up with clean anti freeze (it might take some time to clean out the internals if they are corroded)

 

Regarding your rad fan. I'd suspect the temperature switch which is located just under the top hose. New switches are less than 20 quid if I recall correctly from Peugeot. You should be able to test your current one using a multimeter and a pan of boiling water. Check all your fan wiring over too of course, though there's not much that can go wrong with any of this lot.