rubberjohnson
Member
Hi all,
The little lady (not the missus, the car, obviously) had a bit of a strop on the motorway this weekend. Temp guage suddenly rocketed up to the red. We've already lost one Puma after blowing the head gasket when a coolant pipe went, so I stopped as soon as possible and had a look. Nothing obvious, coolant OK, etc. Five minutes later temp is fine, bang in the middle of the dial. Moved away and up goes the needle, but as soon as I take my foot off the accelerator it drops again. Foot down: temp up. Foot up: temp down. Almost instantaneous.
Worried I may be losing coolant or the water pump is broken I switch on the heater blower to check coolant is in the pipes - yes, very hot air...AND the temperature drops back to normal. Heating off, temperature up; heating on, back to normal. So I drove the rest of the weekend with the heater on (and yes, it was a bloody hot weekend!)
First thoughts were that it can't be the pump or a coolant leak, as explained, so must be radiator isn't doing the full job and the heater matrix is good enough to take the radiator's job on, although the pipes to and from the rad were hot so I think coolant was getting round. Maybe the thermostat stuck half open? My mechanic suggested testing the rad fan so I idled the engine and revved a bit when the missus was back home from work with the car last night and the fan came on fine. (Also, I couldn't replicate the overheating problem, naturally). But I notice the aircon doesn't work; the lights come on but no discernable drop in engine revs and the fan doesn't come on when the aircon is on. I've read on this site that it should be coming on at a low speed with the aircon (to blow air over the heat exchanger) and there are two relays, one for high speed fan and one for low speed (C161 and C160)
I've got the workshop manual and I'll follow all the problem solving there (which is basically testing each fuse that may be involved then moving on to the WOT relay then the A/C switch relay, etc.) but I just wondered if any of you, in your infite(!) Puma wisdom had any suggestions straight off the bat. I find it very odd that the temperature gauge (and thus the engine temp as the gauge seems to be working properly) is reacting that quickly to revs and air flow. Although I suspect something wrong with some part of the rad fan control since it's not coming on with the aircon (although that could be a compressor problem or just no gas I guess), I was driving at a speed sufficient to not need the fan anyway.
Any pointers/suggestions/do's and dont's gratefully accepted, cheers.
Rob
The little lady (not the missus, the car, obviously) had a bit of a strop on the motorway this weekend. Temp guage suddenly rocketed up to the red. We've already lost one Puma after blowing the head gasket when a coolant pipe went, so I stopped as soon as possible and had a look. Nothing obvious, coolant OK, etc. Five minutes later temp is fine, bang in the middle of the dial. Moved away and up goes the needle, but as soon as I take my foot off the accelerator it drops again. Foot down: temp up. Foot up: temp down. Almost instantaneous.
Worried I may be losing coolant or the water pump is broken I switch on the heater blower to check coolant is in the pipes - yes, very hot air...AND the temperature drops back to normal. Heating off, temperature up; heating on, back to normal. So I drove the rest of the weekend with the heater on (and yes, it was a bloody hot weekend!)
First thoughts were that it can't be the pump or a coolant leak, as explained, so must be radiator isn't doing the full job and the heater matrix is good enough to take the radiator's job on, although the pipes to and from the rad were hot so I think coolant was getting round. Maybe the thermostat stuck half open? My mechanic suggested testing the rad fan so I idled the engine and revved a bit when the missus was back home from work with the car last night and the fan came on fine. (Also, I couldn't replicate the overheating problem, naturally). But I notice the aircon doesn't work; the lights come on but no discernable drop in engine revs and the fan doesn't come on when the aircon is on. I've read on this site that it should be coming on at a low speed with the aircon (to blow air over the heat exchanger) and there are two relays, one for high speed fan and one for low speed (C161 and C160)
I've got the workshop manual and I'll follow all the problem solving there (which is basically testing each fuse that may be involved then moving on to the WOT relay then the A/C switch relay, etc.) but I just wondered if any of you, in your infite(!) Puma wisdom had any suggestions straight off the bat. I find it very odd that the temperature gauge (and thus the engine temp as the gauge seems to be working properly) is reacting that quickly to revs and air flow. Although I suspect something wrong with some part of the rad fan control since it's not coming on with the aircon (although that could be a compressor problem or just no gas I guess), I was driving at a speed sufficient to not need the fan anyway.
Any pointers/suggestions/do's and dont's gratefully accepted, cheers.
Rob