Air in system bleed problem (video)

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Jiminwatford

New member
Joined
Dec 24, 2022
Messages
5
I have bought this W reg Puma

It had just had the water pump replaced and the HCV

At idle it's fine but when running gets very warm and sometimes having the heater on full isn't enough

This video is from today. I ran it from cold at around 3000 revs thinking the fan would come on. Only when i loosened the cap did the fan come on. I left it at idle and this is what it was doing for quite a while. The heater was on full.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5P3e043QUw[/youtube]

The heater pipes are jumping and slightly odd sound coming from them

Eventually the fan turned off and the coolant dropped

There seems to be no pressure in the big hose to the side of the engine although sometimes it gets hot

After this i went for a drive and pretty soon it got hot. When i came back i took the cap right off and the coolant was high and occasionally bubbling over. It would then drop. Then build up again. the fan didn't go off

So the water pump is new as is the HCV. I don't mind leaving it for hours with the cap off and running if that what it needs

Help?
 
bumping this in the hope someone can help as I'm at a loss to be honest.

I never really had any problems with cooling system - well, apart from when my mate stupidly wired up the fan backwards for the manual switch I had fitted :lol:
 
I've always run the engine up to normal temperature with the radiator/expansion cap off to let the air locks out on all my cars over the years.
Changed the antifreeze on my Thunder a few months back using that method and it worked fine.
 
There's a few threads about similar questions with what might be useful hints

https://www.projectpuma.com/viewtopic.php?t=31329

Was it happening before the water pump and HCV were replaced?
 
red said:
There's a few threads about similar questions with what might be useful hints

https://www.projectpuma.com/viewtopic.php?t=31329

Was it happening before the water pump and HCV were replaced?

Thanks for the link to the thread. the tip about raising the expansion tank above the engine sounds interesting

I don't know why the parts were changed. I bought the car with the info the cambelt, water pump and HCV were replaced

In all honesty i am slightly assuming it was the HCV. They replaced something by the heater in the engine bay and i'm told something was put on back to front hence for heat you turn the dial to cold :? Sounds great, I know

I think the HCV is all they could have changed

I showed the video to someone who showed it to his mechanic, admittedly a Vauxhall expert, who going on description thought it was the head gasket and from seeing the video was 95% sure

I checked to see if the radiator got hot at the top and it doesn't seem to get hot at all

The large pipe coming out of the top of the radiator doesn't seem to get water into it. It gets hot but is always collapsible by hand
 
I raised the expansion tank as per the thread Red linked to and had the car on a slope

IMG_20221230_103147_514.jpg
IMG_20221230_103226_501.jpg

Once the engine was warm this is what it did in cycles over the next half an hour. It starts off with a rattling coming from the expansion tank. It then occasionally 'popped' or banged. Which made me jump every time it did it. The large hose from the top of the rad to the engine got hot but didn't feel like it had pressure in it. There seemed to be air coming from the two smaller pipes on the expansion tank and at times coming from the larger pipe at the base of the tank. After a hard rev moisture seems to be coming from the exhaust. The temp gauge didn't go above midway. The air coming out of the heater fluctuated between cool and warm

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKwsSe1pD6U[/youtube]
 
Might be a silly question, but have you checked the dipstick/oil cap to see if there is any evidence of it going "milky" i.e. possible head gasket leak?
If the dipstick is reading high, has coolant above the oil mark or a mixture then that's not good along with/or any sign of milky oil on the cap or thereabouts. Also check the water has no signs of oil droplets in it. (certainly looked ok from what I could see in the video but the bubbling would mask it somewhat).

If you aren't losing coolant & the temperature stays ok while driving then I wouldn't be too concerned as it may be something simple like an ill fitting expansion bottle cap which can result in the coolant boiling/bubbling sooner than it would otherwise, which can no doubt cause circulation problems due to said bubbling - I think :lol:

Easy check for that is to watch for steam coming out of the bottle while the cap is on.

So long since I had a bubbling cooling system I may be barking up the wrong tree completely as I've forgotten most of the symptoms/causes/troubleshooting ideas, but as I say I think sometimes it could point to a benign problem, bad fitting expansion bottle cap for example, but also could be a concern like head gasket, all depending on your diagnosis.

You could always buy a head gasket tester (an autoparts trader should sell them cheap enough) that fits to the expansion tank & indicates if any combustion fumes are present. If not then that should rule out the biggest problem.

Good luck :eek:k:
 
Hope the OP managed to sort this out. I had a very similar experience a year or so ago .. After much frustration and attempted troubleshooting - I had a spare genuine HCV I had bought during lockdown - Forgetting I bought it as it had been a looong time since I last replaced the HCV. Changed it out, the old for the new out of desperation and bingo - problem solved. My previous HCV failures resulted in the interiour heater being stuck - But this time the issue showed as almost identical as described. Also grateful for the advice I received from STEAVIE from here too on bleeding....

Fingers crossed you sorted it. I feel your pain! .. PB..
 
pbaldacchino said:
Hope the OP managed to sort this out. I had a very similar experience a year or so ago .. After much frustration and attempted troubleshooting - I had a spare genuine HCV I had bought during lockdown - Forgetting I bought it as it had been a looong time since I last replaced the HCV. Changed it out, the old for the new out of desperation and bingo - problem solved. My previous HCV failures resulted in the interiour heater being stuck - But this time the issue showed as almost identical as described. Also grateful for the advice I received from STEAVIE from here too on bleeding....

Fingers crossed you sorted it. I feel your pain! .. PB..

I didn't sort it unfortunately

Eventually it was put down to the thermostat not opening but i ran out of time with it

It's now been sold so the next person can investigate
 
Is the hissing in the video from a cracked expansion tank (it looked like it was around the small pipe near the cap), stopping the coolant system from getting up to pressure (I think around 2 Bar) and so not self bleeding?
.
Also, I've seen and successfully used some guides for refilling the system (coolant change and water pump replacement). They usually say to turn the interior heater control to maximum while doing so. However, I don't mean to teach Granny, but I've not actually seen any such instructions that specifically say to TURN ON THE IGNITION WHILE REFILLING! The solenoid valve in the HCV would only open with the ignition on and without that, surely it would remain closed (regardless of interior heater position) and so keep a load of air inside the heater matrix and therefore the entire cooling system. In the case of this Post & video, if the expansion tank WAS cracked and not allowing the system to pressurise properly, might that not have failed to bleed any resulting air out of the matrix?
.
Another point to speed things up after re-filling (everybody learns from their mistakes), after starting the engine to warm it up, squeezing all around the hoses and then replacing the expansion cap, PUT THE BONNET BACK DOWN! I didn't the first time I did it, in quite cold weather, and it was taking AGES to get up to temperature to kick the fan in! Once I put it down, the engine bay quickly got nice and toasty and the fan kicked in and I waited the recommended 2 fan cycles! Then checked the level and topped up the next day and all was good!
 

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