coolant out the overflow hose

[ozzyboy]

hey guys. Quick run down

Thursday night, put less than half litre in radiator ready for a trip to lcmp.
Drive the 2.5 hours to park, hit all the tracks for 2 days, drive 2.5 hrs back home, sunday morning.
the whole drive, the factory temp gauge never went over , say, 10mm over half.
now
I pull up at home, shut motor down, and coolant literally flowing out of overflow hose.
This morning, i check the radiator / overflow bottle ... radiator is full to top, still water in overflow.
Any idea what is going on here??
Oil looks clean

cheers

ozz

[Bigrig]

CHeck the thermostat isn't seizing up ... if so, the pressure in the top pipe can seem fine, water in radiator level "looks" good, but coolant simply overflowing out of the bottle and bugger all left in the engine itself ...

Other causes could be blockages in the core itself, but I'd be checking the thermostat first ...

[patch697]

Try a new Radiator cap before you do anything.

[Skull]

Hope like hell it's the radiator cap. I just cracked the head on my ZD30. My fault. Didn't pay enough attention to cleaning the radiator after getting stuck in a mud hole. Towing with no flow through radiator = bad news. Mine was blowing out coolant because the system was pressurised by combustion pressure. Like patch697 said. Replace the cap, both of them. Make sure the one on your resevoir is rated to the correct pressure. Probably good idea to do a flush and change your coolant to. When they get hot the cap is designed to keep the sytem pressurised to increase boiling temp. Bad cap= no pressure and boil all day. Spend good money on quality coolant and make sure you drain the ENTIRE sytem before you fill her up again. This means the drain plug on the side of the block that no one can get to ( ZD30). I found removing the pipe from the Thermostat and flushing water through the heater hoses and top radiator hoses works a treat. If you do this tho use the concentrate to fill it up. That way if there is still water in the engine it will not thin out the coolant like if you added pre mix. Hopefully that and a thorough clean of the radiator will see ya good. If not try SEAL-UP. Any luck that will fix any crack long enough for you to save the $4500 to replace the head or get rid of the car. Don't mean to scare but thats how mine played out, BASTARD. Hope yours is not that bad. The first signs of trouble are boiling when you stop and the air flow through the radiator stops. Good luck bud. By the way those radiators are plastic tanks and bloody brittle. Don't go hard on the hose clamps.

[ozzyboy]

ok. so the best way to tell would be to take it down to the shop and get the coolant system pressure tested. Will this also tell me if i have done damage to the head?

[Ade]

Mate, is it a TD42? I used to have the same situation and turn out to be a defective rad cap. Coolant was boiling out of the over flow tank but luckily no harm to the head.

[patch697]

ok. so the best way to tell would be to take it down to the shop and get the coolant system pressure tested. Will this also tell me if i have done damage to the head?

A chemical head test would be required to test for that, but this can be done at the same time as a pressure test as long as the mechanics have the testing unit.

Change your cap first...... Its not expensive & could save you from re-leaving yourself of folding stuff unnecessarily & if its not the cap then you still have a new cap which cost sweet stuff all.

[ozzyboy]

Mate, is it a TD42? I used to have the same situation and turn out to be a defective rad cap. Coolant was boiling out of the over flow tank but luckily no harm to the head.

petrol tb42 injected petrol / gas

[Ade]

When you say flowing out of the o/f tank, do mean steaming? As mine it was boiling inside the o/flow tank and steaming out of it.

[ozzyboy]

nope. just coolant dripping onto the ground.
The missus was like, "whats that". i checked the overflow and seen it still had coolant in it, however the coolant definantly came out of the overflow.