Back home now so i can finally leave it to cool and see if it needs anymore coolant in it.

Heating working like a champ while i was out.

Coolant temperature did at one point get up to 97 but soon came back down. Seems to sit between 90 and 93 most of the time.

Don't worry about the 97. When it gets to 105 it's time to give it a hard stare

BPSM, I think I have to pass on Sunday :(
Orangebean has sent me a replacement valve block and I'd really like to fit it in daylight. I'm busy on Saturday.

I hope you don't mind, but I think you're probably not at the stage of needing the nanocom just yet?
Anyway, let me know if you want to meet up one evening next week.
Cheers,
Morat

No worries mate. It would appear that the Nanocom is no longer required for this particular problem anyway as flushing the core seems to have done the job.

Would like my emergency valves back at some point though. :-)

If you're doing a block, get a crotchet needle. Best thing i bought for the o-rings.

no10chris wrote:

Just scanning this post and saw your lpg tee off, I’m surprised that doesn’t air lock as it’s so high, if you cut back the aluminium pipe ( flow ) at the bulk head you can elbow it across the back of engine, I bought the elbows 19mm/16mm on eBay and ran mine through the reducer before the heater, can’t say I’ve noticed any difference in cabin temperature and cured my air lock problems I used to have, I also stuck a 16mm bleed valve in to make it even easier to bleed..

So if i understand correctly:

Put the reducer in-line? Flow goes to the reducer, the output of reducer links back into the flow and carries on to the heater core? Get rid of the bothe the flow and return Tees altogether?

Yes that's right, in hose 21 (and not 22 as I think I said before). So it';s manifold, reducer, heater and then the return as it was intended. No Tees, but you'll need 19-16mm reducers in the hoses but the restriction is not noticeable..

Righto.

Dont think ive got issues now but for the sake of a couple of hours and a couple of connectors, it'll tidy it up and prevent against any future problems.

I changed the plumbing on the Ascot to series but although I'd got full flow, the heater was doing odd things. After glueing the dash top down a couple of days ago I ran the engine with the Prog button in (but heated screens switched off) to warm up the glue and help it set. Although it started off hot, after leaving the engine idling for around 20 minutes, the heater was barely lukewarm. So this morning, having seen you'd improved your heater by backflushing the matrix, I pulled the two pipes and did the same. Something resembling tomato soup came out..... Having put it back together, used it a little while ago and the heater is now working exactly as it should.

Good day for plumbing and heating then!
Just as my screen was about to meet with an unfortunate accident, the heating element on the right hand side sprang into life when I hit the Prog button this afternoon. That hasn't worked since I've had the car.
Unfortuately the left hand element, which had worked, stopped working at the same moment.
Bloody electrics. Connectors and earths at screen end are all good, so it must be flaky at the fuse box end. Ah well.

I still need to fix my right hand heated screen. Tis on the list.

As for backflushing, the stuff i got out was more black with bits of rust and other assorted foreign bodies in it. I did mine with hot water and kept kinking the hose and letting go to give it a pulsing motion. Seemed to do the trick. Easy cheap fix.

Thought a bit about my plumbing.

The way it's done now, there's quite a few joints and jubilee clips and when i backflushed, i noticed that the pipe work was rather tired looking from being compressed and it took a few minutes to get everything nipped up to stop little weeps. I may aswell redo the whole lot cause when i take the Tee off the flow, i'd only have to put a straight connector in any road. Are there 0-rings on the metal pipes? if so, d'ya know what size and i'll get some?

Will there be any drawbacks from having the whole coolant path go through the reducer? does that not make it the achilles heal? Or am i worrying about nothing?

The whole coolant flow doesn't go through the reducer and heater, only that in the heater circuit. The heater circuit is the only place it flows through when started from cold and it's only when the stat opens does it go through the radiator as well. Removing as many joins as possible is always a good idea, every join is a potential leak point. So best to replace hose 22, the return from the heater after you have taken the Tee out of it. Obviously you need to have joins in the flow side as you have to reduce the hose size from 19mm down to 16mm and back again, but if you use decent quality (ideally metal) reducers and new hose, you shouldn't have a problem.

smahing.

Are there O-rings on the metal coolant rails?

On a Thor I think there are O rings where the metal pipes attach to the block and inlet manifold but not where the hoses connect to the pipes. So if you are just replacing the hoses, no need to worry. When I've got new ones to fit, rather than pulling and heaving on the old hoses to get them off, I just slit them lengthwise with a Stanley knife so they come off easily.