potentially, but the manifold looks dry and doesnt have much sign of any coolant. Theres a small puddle on top of the water pump, but i suspect thats made its way there from me changing the radiator top hose at the weekend. No signs of coolant anywhere near the actual water pump.
Rad is new and theres no signs of coolant on the rad itself.
Things get weirder though!
I parked it at work at half 9, and could see some drips off the gearbox bellhousing and rear of the engine block. They formed a small puddle (maybe a 6" diameter circle of wet) after being parked for about 2-3minutes.
Around 10 i went back to the car to fetch my coffee, the drips that were there previously had stopped and were clearly drying up on the concrete.
I decided i would go down to the car at lunch, start it up and have a good poke around looking for a leak. So around 1 i went out to the car, and found a massive puddle of coolant under it and stretching across the road. Opening the bonnet, there was a very obvious leak coming from the LPG T piece that i mentioned earlier. It was dripping off that, running along the edge of the rocker cover and then down the back of the engine and dripping off the starter motor.
So i topped it up with water (it took a kettle full) and then fired it up.... And the leaking T piece stopped leaking... WTF?
I've ordered a pair of new (metal) T's as well as some meters of 16mm hose for the LPG, so i guess i will change those out and see what happens :/
Seems to be one of those situations that the more i look, the more confused i get. I took some photos at lunch, i will see if i can post them.
And down the rabbit hole we go....
Swapped the dodgy looking coolant hose on sunday. Tried as best i could to not disturb the o-rings and filled it all back up.
Did a few miles around town and it seemed to use the whole expansion tank, but i figured that might just have been some air working its way out, so topped it up. No obvious damp carpet that one might expect for almost a litre of coolant having gone missing.
This morning it was about an inch down from the level so i filled it up again. looking underneath there was a few drips, which seemed to be directly underneath the heater hoses on the bulkhead. Had a feel about and the LPG T Piece was damp, so i tightened that up, refilled the coolant and set off to work (35miles).
Arrived at work and parked on an area of clean concrete and by the time i got out and looked underneath, there was already a puddle forming. Expansion tank was empty. Underneath the car there was active drops dipping off gearbox bellhousing. At the front, the steering bars and damper were also covered in drips of coolant.
Not convinced this is heater o-rings, theres no sign at all of leakage inside the car. Any ideas?
Try unplugging the MAF. It'll take two or three goes to start it without the MAF plugged in, but it should run fine once it starts.
I had an issue with mine doing the "belching black smoke and missfiring" and it was a bad MAF that was to blame.
Got a part number for the BMW one? Or a year/model/engine spec?
Also, you can easily tell the converter is unlocked by varying the load on the engine. Dont lift off completely, but if you cycle between say 20% and 60% throttle you will see (and hear) the revs rise and fall slightly if its unlocked.
If its locked the revs wont change.
It'll lock the converter on mine after shifting into 3rd as well.
3100 seems a bit of a weird speed though? i'm sure thats too low for third, but too high for 4th even with an unlocked converter?
From memory, mine sits around 2600rpm at 70 with the converter locked in 4th. With converter unlocked the rpms will be a little bit higher, maybe 2800.
70 in 3rd is up around 3500 with the converter locked.
The converter wont lock when its cold. Takes maybe 5-10 minutes of driving on a motorway on a cold day to get the converter to lock.
Perhaps the later cars with the smaller converter simply rev higher with it unlocked, and it was infact in 4th, but hadnt locked the converter due to being too cold?
My vaporiser has 10mm inlets which seems quite a restriction to the coolant flow so I think I will keep it parallel for now.
I guess I'll be very careful with the fittings and hope it doesn't start leaking!
Exactly the same location. The guy said something like "oh that's cracked on the blocks" which I guess is the same as what you've suggested.
He did say the screen was very old and is delaminating at the bottom, so it's probably original?
I've had a persistant coolant leak from the inlet manifold for a while. There was always a puddle of coolant underneath the big fitting on the right side of the manifold that feeds the heater matrix. I had actually assumed the threads were leaking (theres signs of PTFE tape).
Inspecting it closely earlier i noticed some slightly worrying signs, firstly, it think the hose looks noticable swollen. Its ~19mm at both ends, but it bulges out beside the inlet manifold in a rather unnatural manner, and replacement hoses on ebay look nothing like that, they appear to be 19mm all the way along. Secondly i think its leaking from the cords... I tightened the clip up but it continues to leak. I think the coolants actually seeping along the reinforcement cords and out the end, suggesting the inside of the hose is compromised. A disaster waiting to happen for sure!
The small complex that feeds the heater/expansion tank/thermostat, also has signs of pink coolant leaking from the joints, so i'll replace all of those, and i think actually i should just replace everything. The lower thermostat hoses are drenched in oily ming which also isnt good for rubber hoses, and the main top rad hose looks a wee bit "uneven" though not swollen to the extreme of that heater hose.
So that leads me to the question. The heater o-rings. They arent (obviously) leaking, but i believe removing the heater hoses runs the risk of disturbing them? I've noticed when inspecting the pipes earlier that the top heater pipe that pokes thru the bulkhead was covered in the usual tell-tale pink deposits, suggesting coolant is leaking either from the pipe or the o ring. Theres no obvious dampness inside though.
I dont really have time to sort the o-rings at the moment, but i'd like to get this clearly knackered coolant hose sorted out before it leaves me stranded... What are my chances!?
hmm! I've booked it during work hours, thinking i was being clever and getting it fixed when i'm otherwise busy!
Noticed the other day that my windscreen had cracked. The crack has appeared from the bottom edge, under the rubber seal and its working its way up and across.
I had booked autoglass for today, but unfortunately he turned up with a non-heated screen, so its now rebooked for next week.
However he did point out that it could be rust thats caused it... Something i hadnt even thought about.
Anyone know if the P38 tends to be susceptible to rust in/around the scuttle/windscreen area?
Clive603 wrote:
Find that the older I get the quicker I reach for the saw or grinder.
I find similar with rounded off or seized bolts. Years ago i might have spent hours messing about with vice grips and stiltons, or hammering on sockets, now i just reach for the welder.
Dad came to me recently with his new car and had no locking wheel nut key. It took more time stuffing some cardboard around the wheel rim to protect it than it did to buzz an old bolt onto the end of the locking nut.
With these though, surely if you cut the head off, you still end up with a bit of the bolt sticking out of the bush thru the axle, that stops you getting the arm out?
Gilbertd wrote:
But with it blanked, there's no path back to the header tank for any air trapped in the inlet manifold. Think about it, that's one of the highest points in the cooling system so air is going to sit there. Anything trapped in the heater hoses will get pushed through by the water pump and end up in the header, any in the radiator will do the same through the bleed hose but any in the top of the engine has nowhere to go.
I did think of that, but figured i'd try it and see, and its been fine. The port comes off the manifold in the main coolant channel from the cylinder head so its unlikely air will get stuck there, it'll just get pushed thru into the radiator which then has its own air bleed to the header tank. The main radiator outlet is also at a pretty similar height anyway.
If you were really worried about bleeding, you could simply pop the blanking pipe off and let the air out.
I've given up using copper slip type anti-sieze on bolts that have a propensity for siezing up. Instead i'll usually slather them in moly CV grease, as most will know from experience, when that gets on something it never goes away again!
makes sense, see what it looks like when it arrives.
I guess i can have a poke and see, can always resell the switch pack or keep it as a spare.
Seems weird that the whole thing would be dead rather than specific buttons, is there a common fault that takes out the whole thing?
Perfect thanks. I had a look this morning and my eyes near popped out my head at the price of the switch packs. However that dead one from east coast 4x4 looks the part so i've ordered that.
Any thoughts on the lid itself?
Just took a pic of it open:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/TjWweTMzvnhEMfCv9
That silver bolt at the bottom of the gas strut is clearly abnormal and the lid jams in the pictured position unless you really force it down.
My console is a bit shonky, and I'd like to fix it.
First off the button to open the hatch is missing:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/pYWhcyy43hMMair59
But the hatch itself is also hard to open and kinda gets stuck when you flip it over to the cupholders. The hinge side has been messed about with.
But I don't know what bits I need to replace, I've looked on eBay and can't see where the button actually is?
Any advice would be appreciated.