Anybody Know any solutions to help prevent over heating on P38 2.5?

This might be a good question for people thinking of buying a 2.5 P38 or someone who is worried about the overheating problem.

This really is the only thing that is worrying me about buying one, I don't mind getting my hands dirty and fixing litle niggles but don't really wanna have to do an engine change if it happens, I do a bit of towing so would like to TRY and prevent this lol

Hi

From my limited knowledge, the radiators were quite small on the cars and due to their age are likely to be in bad condition, rotting away etc.

Second problem could be an issue with the viscous fan.

That is the end of my knowledge, but hope it helps.

Cheers

Adam

i havnt had a problem with overheating as yet but i do put a coolant addative to keep it cooler expensive but it works there are lots of makes i cant remember what i put in but i had it off radtec so check there website for details

I must had w 'weird' one, for my 2.5 always ran COOL, & when the viscous-fan failed, I removed it completely for several months, & it only got hot when towing my large box-trailer up the hills over the moors, so I fitted an 18" Kenlow fan with a 2 speed over-ride switch, now, for over 2 years, the fan never cuts in during 'normal' use, & once or twice when pulling heavy loads up hills. Its great to watch the temp-gauge go from hot to normal within about 20 seconds or so!!

When mine started overheating,everything pointed to the head gasket so I was dreading the bill from the garage but it turned out to be the thermostat which had thrown one so only cost me £30,I had the engine pressure tested to twice its capacity and the head was fine,apparently its very unusual for the head gasket to go on a 2.5 diesel.So fingers crossed I aint had any trouble for the last six weeks!

hi, recently got a 95 2.5 dtse, and it seems to be fine, no overheats on long runs. Had to top up the coolant resevoir when i got it, about 2 pints of water/glycol mix, and to date no loss is apparent.

When driving i have noticed that the temp gauge just gets out of the blue section, and has never even reached half way.............is this normal??? Could it be an early sign of the thermostat playing up?????

My temp gauge was only just out of the blue and the garage said that all cars temp gauge should be halfway as mine is now the thermostat has been replaced and I aint had no trouble at all,I suggest you just keep an eye on it or chuck £30 at it for peace of mind.

999mph said:

When driving i have noticed that the temp gauge just gets out of the blue section, and has never even reached half way.............is this normal??? Could it be an early sign of the thermostat playing up?????

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Is there a thermostat fitted or has it been removed?

No problems with mine in fact I'm not sure where the talk of a problem comes from as I've not heard of anyone who has had anything worse than a thermostat or water pump!
Mine stayed in the blue on the gauge for a while and a new stat fixed that.

I ave noticed this aswell on mine, the temp for the best part of a year was just getting pas the blue but for some reason - possibly the weather- it sits at 12 o'clock or just under...is the thermostat that needs to be changed annually?

quite the opposite mate... yours is now working properly! If the temperature is only just above the blue the motor will not be fully hot and the car will use more fuel. Just below midpoint i.e. 12 o clock is spot on. It sounds like a sticky thermostat and worth keeping an eye on it. After changing the stat on mine it sits just below 12 (about 11:30!) regardless of driving in town on the motorway or weather from a cold night here to 33 degrees centigrade in the south of France this summer.

My temp gauge sits just above the blue, nothing like halfway.
It did get hot(into the red) once when I towed a loaded horse box over the M62 up hill. I just puled onto the hard shoulder and reved the engine to about 1500-2000rpm for a while so the fan cooled the motor and it went down quite quick.
I had a 2.5 DT that used t get hot towing up hil (tothe point that the light would come on).
Will it use quite a lot more fuel with a bust themostat then?

I found this post from Sir Ben if it helps.

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I've recently been through a similar saga with my '99 DSE. Driven locally it wouldn't overheat at all, and it was just running much too well to be a head gasket gone, but put it on a dual carriageway at 70-ish and after around 20 minutes the temp gauge would ping over to the stop and it would go into limp-home 5 mph mode. Really couldn't believe it was problems with the head and the rad seemed to be pretty warm all over and showing no blockages, but after changing thermostat, pressure cap and temp sender, I bit the bullet and had the head off to find no sign of gasket problems. Had to have the head skimmed and new gaskets, then off up the dual carriageway and back to the overheating after 20 minutes of higher revs, just like before.
Then I heard about problems with P38 radiators. Apparently there is some sort of baffle in the rad that sends the water right down and around the whole radiator to keep things cool, but if this baffle fails for any reason, the water goes in through one port at the top of the rad, straight across the top and out of the other port, also on the top, without passing through the whole cooling matrix. The rad still warms up reasonably well, but doesn't do much cooling and after 20 minutes or so the temperature creeps up and it overheats.
It sort of made sense to me, and by this time I'd spent a small fortune on the engine with no success, so I put a new radiator in and have had no problems since. The funny thing was that I'd thought the rad was blocking and was disappointed when I put water in one end to flush it through, only to find that it was flowing freely out of the other end, so I wasn't too hopeful at that point. Perhaps it's something to do with both hoses being on the top, instead of one at the top and the other at the bottom like in most rads. But it did the trick and now pulls as well as ever.
Anyway, I hope this may help others trace their heating problems.