Coolant Issue On Phase 2 205 With Mi16

[Shark506 2]

Finally got the car home, only to be greeted by a pool of coolant on the floor. Opened the bonnet to find coolant all over the bulkhead & expansion tank. The coolant is coming from the outlet at the rear of the black tank that faces the bulkhead, near to the cap. Is this an overflow or is a pipe missing & if so where does it go to? Nothing appears to have come off.

 

Any ideas?

[pug_ham 240 3 Cars]

The expansion tank has four outlets but usually only three are in use with on on the neck by the cap an overflow which only comes into use if the cap releases pressure.

 

 

Which of the hoses in the above picture is missing? If it's the larger hose at the r/h side of the cap then this should go to the thermostat housing or throttle body depending on if its been left plumbed in, if its the smaller one it goes to the top of the rad on o/s top edge.

 

I saw your car at Andy's once or twice when I called in recently for some tyres swapping.

 

Unfortunately I didn't look that closely & can't remember how it has been plumbed in, although I seem to remember thinking it wasn't that good, a nasty mix & match of 205 & BX pipework hacked together previously with pipes cut & joined randomly.

 

This picture shows how the cooling system is plumbed originally on the 205 but iirc your car has at least the rail along the back of the cylinder head as shown in this post

 

g

[Shark506 2]

Andy mentioned you & said you'd had a look. To be honest the whole installation is shoddy & can't believe the previous owner paid £4500 for the work (invoice detailing what was done!).

 

From what you're saying the coolant is coming from the overflow then.

 

Just want to get the car usable for now then take it off the road in winter & get things sorted out properly.

 

Cheers for the response.

[dcc 855]

New caps are around £7 worth seeing if it helps

[dave richards 26 1 Cars]

on completly different note i had an issue on the way home today centre core plug above the exhaust manifold in the head decided it didn't lie holding water 50 miles from home

[Shark506 2]

I've put a new cap on but coolant still comes out of the overflow, will have to check it is the right cap.

 

Sorry to hear, hope you got home okay & can get it sorted soon.

[Shark506 2]

Two of the core plugs had gone on my car when I got it & mechanic who fixed it said they were I right sod to fix but all sorted & no damage. He managed to replace them just by loosening the manifold.

[dave richards 26 1 Cars]

fitted 3 new plugs to the car today started it up and al seems ok at the minute

[pug_ham 240 3 Cars]

I was quite surprised at the conversion quality as well, even more so now you say how much was paid for it!!

 

I've put a new cap on but coolant still comes out of the overflow, will have to check it is the right cap.

When does it leak coolant? You can usually run the engine right up to the cooling fan cutting in / out without a cap on & the coolant will only leak out of the expansion tank when you switch the engine off if you haven't fitted the cap before doing so.

 

If you are really stuck, I can call over sometime to have a look at it if you want?

 

Sorry to hear you had an intersting drive home dave, you did well to get the core plugs so fast, I think they had a bit of a wait to get them for Gregs car through the local Citroen dealers.

 

g

[Shark506 2]

Spoke to Andy today & he says he had filled the expansion tank right up so the issue was hopefully just volume of liquid. The tank is about half full now so hopefully issue is sorted.

 

I can't test it at the moment because it is in my garage with the dash in bits, as is the norm with Peugeots, you start with one simple job which quickly snowballs into several others!!!!

 

You're more than welcome to call over.

[pug_ham 240 3 Cars]

Ok, let me know when the dash is back together if you're still having the same problem with colant oveflow & I'll call over sometime to see if we can find the problem.

 

g

[pug_ham 240 3 Cars]

I went over to Gregs last week to have a look as he is still suffering from water gushing out of the expansion tank when the car is hot after a run occasionally.

 

My first impression of the cooling system was it had been botched together in such a away that the expansion tank was constantly plumbed in with the heater matrix to thermostat houing hose Tee'd straight back to the tank & the return pipe from the top of the rad to the expansion tank chopped & blocked with a bolt.

 

 

 

Unfortunately after I'd swapped hoses to make it much more like the original 205 layout Greg reported it had still spat some coolant out on him.

 

I think Greg has taken his car to a local garage today for a sniff / pressure check for a suspect head gasket failure.

 

I don't think this is the cause because the hoses aren't going solid & a fire ring failure on an engine DES developments rebuilt less than 2k ago seems unlikely to me but I also think the cooling system needs further correction to remove the botched joints to plumb the oil / water heat exchanger back into the bottom hose.

 

g