Diabolical problem

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chilipalmer

New member
Joined
Mar 14, 2012
Messages
292
For ages now I've been having a problem with too much pressure building up in the cooling system. I've changed the head gasket twice, had the cylinders compression checked, changed most of the hoses, had the radiator professionally cleaned but the problem persists. What's more, the coolant sometimes "disappears" and then reappears. Just a while ago I checked it and it was bellow min. So I went and get some water + coolant, opened the expansion bottle and it's back to normal! I know i'm losing coolant through the shorter HVC pipe (crappy brand, not genuine Ford) and I'm getting small rubber debris in the expansion bottle, so it seems the pipe is going to the dogs. That does not explain the excessive pressure though. The mechanic told the head was fine... and the car pulls great and doesn't overheat...
Could the block be shagged?
 
If you're leaking and seeing debris, the drops could be air bubbles and the high pressure, could the said debris blocking the water pump temporarily and the temps rising.
As a short test, could you bypass the HCV with a pipe connector and jubilee clips?

If you open up your oil cap, does the oil look frothy white?
 
The oil is normal. I had the HCV bypassed a while ago and had the same problem. The HCV is pratically new, btw. The leak seems to be coming from the pipe next to the coil pack. The car doesn't overheat.
 
The big ones going to and from the HCV?
Unknown to me I had a leak over time from one of them (perhaps years), I too need to constantly top up the water, I didn't realise and I found out the worst way. It failed and the water went everywhere and hissed badly (a hose bandage for £7 from Euro carparts counter allowed me to do a 200 mile journey after that). The fix was £15 pipes. Before that I saw small pools of "oil", I guess it was the pink coolant reacting to the hot engine it was sprayed upon.

It had a split in the pipe, about an inch long, on the under side, have a good feel around there, like you said near the coil pack.
Again, the debris and air bubbles (?) could account for it.

Good luck!
 
chilipalmer said:
[post]360347[/post] That does not explain the excessive pressure though
How does this excessive pressure show itself and what harmful effects is it causing?
 
Frank said:
[post]360359[/post]
chilipalmer said:
[post]360347[/post] That does not explain the excessive pressure though
How does this excessive pressure show itself and what harmful effects is it causing?


The hoses get really swollen and forces coolant out of one of the HVC hoses. Because I keep checking the coolant level there hasn't been any harmful effects (like overheating) but I'm expecting a catastrophic failure sooner or later. I've also noticed that the car pisses out coolant after running for a while with the expansion bottle cap off. Like I said before, I've already changed the head gasket twice (the mechanic who did the job was dodgy though, so I' not sure he skimmed the head).
 
chilipalmer said:
[post]360361[/post] I've also noticed that the car pisses out coolant after running for a while with the expansion bottle cap off.
Well, it would, that is how physics of this works.

I'm going to bow out of this one, as I don't understand the logic being used to diagnose this problem. The compression testing was OK, the oil is OK, the vehicle is not overheating and yet the head gasket was replaced twice.

To me, given the information at hand - rubber debris, swollen HCV hoses, which lose coolant when hot - suggests the solution is the replacement of all HCV hoses with proper Ford ones, followed by a simple reverse coolant flush.
 
Hi.

This reminds me of a similar problem I had about thirty years ago on a Mini clutch slave cylinder hose. The clutch would feel like a brake pedal and the clutch would not work, it was intermittent. It turned out to be that the hose had delaminated internally. Effectively it was like having one hose inside another when under pressure the inner hose collapsed and restricted to whole hose.

I hope this may be of some use.

Regards,
Richard.
 

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