Any other options bar the Airtex? Mine has been on less than a year and its now leaking past the shaft... not entirely amused.
Pretty sure I bought either this or the QH boxed version of the same thing. Can't find receipt to be certain.
https://www.lrdirect.com/STC4378-supplied-by-allmakes-branded-pr2allmakesoe.html.
No leaks, rattles or wobbles after a couple of years
Hmmm
A bit more googling suggests the Airtex is normally alright... maybe I've just been unlucky, but it would happen to mine, which is a complete bastard to bleed.
Will give Island a ring later and see about getting it replaced. Still, at least the location of the weep hole lets the coolant run down onto the casting that makes up the bottom hose inlet where it dries on so you can see it! So it can taunt you... 'so you think you're done with the cooling system, eh?'
Only other things that would contribute to bearing wear would be fan out of balance or overtight belt. As belt tension is automatic and fan is a shrouded/ encased blade design you can probably eliminate those.
IVe had plenty bad experience with bleeding. I ended up buying this : https://www.amazon.co.uk/Draper-09544-Coolant-Vacuum-Refill/dp/B003BVD5NE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1481840064&sr=8-1&keywords=B003BVD5NE
Its expensive but cheaper can be found.It saves a lot of hassle and swearing, takes minutes and will also indicate if there are any leaks.
You will need a compressor though.
Well I have a new pump to go on this weekend, enthusiasm and a 19mm T piece arriving today pending, and I've now got a cooling system pressure testing kit like Marty has. We used that to force coolant up and into my LPG vapourisor while the top-most hose on it was loose. Once coolant started coming out, the hose was tightened and that sorted that problem.
Where did you order your enthusiasm from Sloth? I could do with some to stick on the shelf!
Don't want to name and shame, cos it never turned up! Nor did the T piece, though I managed to acquire one semi-locally yesterday.
I suppose I should go and do it... need to overcome this massive bout of 'can't be arsed'.
G'wan! before the temps drop to sub-artic and you're sitting there without a nice comfy Range Rover to drive through the ice...
He's darn sarf, it never gets that cold......
Oh come on!
So I decided to do the rocker cover first (putting off my dislike of the cooling system as much as possible, naturally). For some reason, the gasket refuses to sit nicely once tightened down and I can't see why. But given the liberal dosage of RTV this time round, I was happy with it...
Went to put the bolts back in the coil pack bracket after putting the inlet on and naturally dropped one down into the valley. Retrieved with the magnet, and its covered in coolant. So the valley gasket is leaking too... I don't have a new one of those...
"@£@(%@ing car. I suppose its better I find that before dropping and refilling with coolant...
It was just letting you know ;)
I'm not convinced the gasket is actually leaking now. Using an inspection camera, I can't see any trace of coolant from any of the four corners of the lower inlet manifold where the passages in the heads are (I know the rear two are blocked off by the lower inlet, but the gasket could still leak).
It seems to have run from the front to the back starting directly below where the top hose spout bolts onto the manifold, but again that looks clean. I'm wondering if this is just left over from when I replaced my throttle body heater hose - a bit did come out the hose connection and disappear down onto the valley gasket then, and it wasn't all that long ago. Combined with the general grime on the valley gasket, and lower temperature than coolant sitting on metal surfaces, I guess it could just be that spillage that hasn't totally dried up. There isn't much of it left as liquid - the trail from front to back is dry, its just a little bit left at the back conveniently where my bolt dropped onto.
Unless anyone knows of any other likely sources, I think I'm going to continue changing the pump tomorrow and put it back together as is, and wash/degrease everywhere I can - see what comes back in a couple of hundred miles.
I think that's a sensible call. Dry it all off then run it around for a while and see if it comes back.
Life's too short to be pulling valley gaskets without hard facts. Possibly a touch of P38 paranoia there!
I've just found a load of oil where there shouldn't be any on my new one and I'm at the point of ripping off the heads and sump to pull pistons, but have decided to walk away and ponder awhile. I'm a living example of P38 paranoia :)
Yeah. I didn't really think to look but I bet some of the LPG jets make unbolting the lower manifold a pain in the arse too. I'm sure it'll leak from somewhere, but depending on where and how much, it may just wait till nicer weather... or I can afford a new engine.
Just not enough light in a day to mess around outside and investigate everything as far as you'd like!
Not sure about the Thor but on a GEMS there's a hose that comes off the front of the inlet manifold and then runs down to the thermostat. I had a mysterious coolant leak on my Classic which turned out to be that hose had a split in it. As the split was at the bottom it couldn't be seen but it dropped coolant onto the valley gasket which then ran down and dripped off the back. Spent ages checking everything at the back before I found where it was actually leaking from (and a lot harder on a Classic with a bloody great distributor in the way).
They removed that pipe for the Thor arrangement, instead the thermostat bypass circuit comes from the T piece in the rubber top hose. That leaves either valley gasket, top hose spout where it bolts on, throttle body supply, or the single coolant temperature sensor. The heater supply could conceivably leak result in coolant sitting in the valley too, but it would fill the little area below it first which would then overflow into the valley. I have some weeping there where it needs some fettling, but nothing major, and nothing has collected below it at all.
Tomorrow's problem.
Time to deploy your cooling system pressure tester? You could go high tech and add
http://www.ringautomotive.com/uk/products/Workshop+Tools/Leak+Detection/Fluorescent+Dyes/RLD2
That way you could deploy your black light and darkness would be your friend :)
I hadn't thought about that... what a muppet.
The dye looks fancy... I'm loving the Ikea destruction manual:
http://www.ringautomotive.com/files/mydocs/RLD2%20UV%20DYES%20Instructions%20Coolant.pdf
The advantage of using your pressure tester in combination with the uv fluid would be that you don't have to run the engine and have the fan blast blowing your leak in all directions. Blow your system up to 1.3 bar and wait patiently in the dark.