riddlemethis wrote:

Whilst sat outside with the cap off its just blowing out but I probably also dont give it time to overheat as I turn it off straight away.

If there are no combustion gases in the coolant, it's air. If you have a leak near the top of the engine, it will be drawing air in rather than leaking coolant out (especially if the cap is off so there is no pressure in the system), which will cause an airlock which will expand and blow the coolant out.

I bought the 30mm nylon rod a few months ago, I just haven't got round to cutting it up to make the blocks yet. Well, we all know that knowing the problem and having the bits is 99.9% of having done the job. Mind you, my daughter's boyfriend didn't take the same viewpoint when I told him there's no point in changing his slipping clutch now he's bought the parts to repair it......

Insufficient refrigerant. Yours is the later one that takes 1380 grammes compared with the GEMS cars that take 1250. Even 1250 is a lot compared with most cars so unless they've looked it up and put the correct amount in, they probably just bunged the average 850-900 grammes in.

Rain water getting in through the pollen filter housing and being sprayed around by the heater fan? If your heater ducts are anything like mine the foam in the joins has fallen out long ago so only about half the blower output gets as far as the heater box, the rest comes out and blows on the passengers feet (which causes my passenger to complain so I really should get under there with some duct tape). That could explain the whoosing noise and jet of water as it gets blasted through the gaps.

My '93 Classic LSE had 10 spline diffs, or at least it did on the rear axle I don't think I ever took the front apart, even though by '93 it should have had 24 spline. I think at one stage they got whatever was laying around at the time......

But there isn't any coolant or AC pipes in the area of the passenger blower and the AC drains are in the centre, either side of the transmission tunnel and just dribble? You sure that's where it came from?

I'm in Cambridgeshire and we don't do hills here either but at 22m above sea level I think my house is higher than all of Holland!

There's also this http://www.rangerovers.net/forum/7-range-rover-mark-ii-p38/73321-eas-calibration-blocks.html and I've got the nylon rod out in the garage ready to make up a set, never have got round to cutting it up though......

If it doesn't drop with the timer relay removed, then you don't have any leaks in the springs or the valve block. The settling you hear when you get out of it is normal as it levels itself then goes to sleep. The timer relay wakes it up every 5-6 hours and if any corner is lower than the stored height because you are parked somewhere that isn't level, it will drop the others to the same height to keep it levelled. What happens then is that it will settle slightly so the next time it wakes up, it detects that they still don't match so will level them again. Left long enough it will be on the bumpstops.

That isn't the question. Pressure will build up when it is overheating due to thermal expansion, it's when they get hard before it gets hot when you have a problem. If you start the engine and let it idle, do the hoses get rock hard, the coolant is spat out the overflow and then it starts to overheat due to a lack of coolant? If not, there isn't an engine problem.

Overheating is caused by one of two things, a lack of coolant or a lack of flow. When a head gasket leaks, combustion gases get forced into the cooling system. That causes the system to pressurise enough to cause the coolant to be forced out. The gases that are in the cooling system get heated too and expand far more than the coolant would normally which speeds up the rate the coolant is being forced out. The engine then overheats because there isn't enough coolant left to keep it cool. Something like a boat engine that has an unlimited supply of coolant, won't overheat because it'll never run out of coolant. Lack of flow is far simpler, the coolant doesn't circulate so it doesn't pass through the radiator and get cooled by the airflow.

My money is still on a lack of flow.......

Authorised rather than main dealer so I suspect they fitted the cheapest they could find but charged you the price of the genuine article. Unless it still has any labels on it you're going to have a job finding out what it is though. Do the hoses get hard?

Was it Land Rover themselves and how much did they charge for it? If they charged less than £500 for a radiator, then they didn't fit a genuine one. See here http://www.rimmerbros.co.uk/Item--i-GRID009567 for the differences in price.

Rather than pulling the engine apart, I'd be treating it to a new radiator if a thermostat change doesn't do anything. If the bottom hose is cold and the top hose is hot, that shows that you've got no flow between the top and the bottom. As you've already changed the water pump, that should be working so the only thing left is that the water can't flow through the radiator. If you had an engine problem, the hoses would be rock hard from the build up of pressure but both the top and bottom hoses would still get hot.

Knowing the problems with Britpart bits and having experienced a few of them (air springs with only 1 O ring so they never seal properly and when I first bought my Classic it took a good 20 seconds at idle before the oil pressure light went out because the Britpart oil filter fitted to it had no non-return valve so all the oil drained back to the sump when it was left overnight), I've always steered well clear of them since. I do have one Britpart component on my car though that I thought they couldn't get wrong. The bottom part of one of my windscreen washer nozzles had broken off so the pipe was jammed onto what remained. It worked but dripped slightly so I had a permanent puddle on one of my rocker covers. At only a fiver I figured that even Britpart couldn't get something as simple as a washer nozzle wrong. They can. Instead of two nice clean jets of water on my windscreen, I get two sprays that look like they are coming from shower heads that sometimes hit the correct part of the screen.....

50 quid each!! Kin ell, I'm not paying that..... I've seen a number or reasonable looking ones around the £20 each mark and have considered trying a couple in the front doors. I've still got the originals which don't sound bad but as it never had a stereo at all fitted from the factory, it only had the Lo line speaker setup of just the big ones and tweeters in the front doors and a single big one in the rears. I've since added the midrange front and back but my front passenger woofer has seen better days, it starts to rattle long before hitting the threshold of pain. I'm also considering fitting something like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kenwood-KSC-SW11-Compact-Under-Seat-150W-Active-Amplified-Powered-Subwoofer-Sub-/171165909764 under the rear shelf where the sound from the original factory sub would have come out but not taking up as much room (as my toolbox lives in that corner of the boot).

Cap shouldn't hiss unless your hoses feel rock hard......

Are you saying you are able to take the cap off when it has overheated? If you can it isn't a head gasket problem as it would have so much pressure in the system it will end up everywhere.

Wrong bloke, Scotty is the one being talked about, the self styled BeCM Doctor, but I know what you mean. If anyone else posted some of the stuff mates of RRTH post, they'd be deleted immediately. He may be an ex-Pat Brit but he's rapidly turning into a Yank, 3 pages on a thread where he's trying to find an electrical fault. Stop playing around on the bloody internet and get your meter out FFS! There was a thread in the Classic forum about garages a few weeks ago. It had nothing to do with Classics other than the fact that some of them had Classics in their huge, industrial warehouse sized, fully equipped, centrally heated, air conditioned, carpeted garages but it didn't get deleted because it allowed the moderators to show off how many cars they'd got.

That's why this forum exists though.......

Poke a bit of thin wire through the pipe going into the header tank, they can clog up especially if the engine has been run with plain water or very little antifreeze.

Morat wrote:

In other news, the EAS has stopped automatically dropping at >50mph and returning when you slow down. It does what you tell it to if you press the EAS Inhibit button but it just stays on the middle mode if you leave it alone.

Huh? That doesn't make a lot of sense. If the Inhibit button is pressed, it will stay where it is and won't drop after 30 seconds at more than 50 mph and rise back up again at more than 30 seconds at under 35 mph, it will just stay at whatever height it was at. It's recommended that you use it when towing so it always stays at the correct height needed to keep the trailer level. Also with it pressed in, you can manually select motorway height which you can't do with it out. With the Inhibit not pressed, you can use the rocker to select access, normal and high but not motorway, with it pressed, you can select them all. If it isn't dropping automatically when it should, then it might be that the Inhibit switch has gone short circuit so the ECU thinks it is in when it isn't (although that should cause the switch light to come on too to show you it's pressed in).

Although the RAVE method usually works, I've my own way of bleeding the air out of the system. Have a go at this:

You can start filling through the top hose connector on the inlet manifold and once it won't take any more there (preferably fill with neat anti-freeze), connect the hose and start filling at the header tank. Rather than rely on the air finding it's way out of the bleed at the top of the radiator, I usually take the pipe off that and leave it open. Sooner or later, coolant will start to dribble out of the nipple on the radiator. When it does, squeeze the top hose, put a finger over the nipple and release the top hose. That will push air out of the nipple but suck coolant in from the header tank as the hose returns to normal shape. Just keep on doing that, squeeze, plug the hole, release, squeeze, plug the hole, release, etc. You'll notice the level going down in the header tank quite quickly and every time you squeeze the top hose you'll hear bubbling in the pipes too. Just keep topping up the header tank until you can squeeze the top hose and not hear any bubbling somewhere in the bowels of the engine.

Then connect the bleed pipe and give the top hose another squeeze. You should see a jet of coolant inside the top of the tank from the bleed. Give it a couple of more goes. Squeeze the top hose, finger over the hole just inside the header tank, release the hose. Keep doing that until you can't hear any bubbling. Then, and only then, start the engine. Let it idle with the header tank cap off and watch for any air bubbles appearing in there. Again, a quick squeeze on the top hose should shift anything still in there. The level will rise as the heat causes the coolant to expand but if it starts overflowing, you've still got air in there somewhere (air expands far more than coolant so any air locks will expand and force the coolant out). Once the stat opens (top hose gets hot), the level may drop, just keep topping it up. If you've got rid of the air, you should see a nice steady stream out of the bleed pipe into the header and the level will stay steady. If the level drops or rises rapidly you've still not got all the air out so switch the engine off and do a bit more squeeze and plug. When you are happy there's no more air in there, put the cap on the header tank.

The car wants to be sitting level or if this isn't possible get it so the front right corner is highest so any air will rise up to the header tank. They can be a bit of a bastard to bleed completely. I bought mine with a blown head gasket, changed that, filled the header tank up just like I would on any other car and took it for a run down the road. I managed about 3 miles before the gauge shot up to the top, the red light came on and there was steam coming out of the header tank overflow. Fortunately, I still had a gallon of water in the boot so let the pressure escape, refilled it and limped home before reading the book and spending a bit more time doing it properly.

Have fun