Duh... what's this bit?

Sorry, daft question time but I haven't got hold of a manual yet and the stickers aren't helping/existent. What are the 3 reservoirs in the pic?

Left is power steering, but not sure the other two. Assume one is brake master. The middle one on mine is currently empty...

Ta.

power steering , coolant and brake fluid

middle empty = leak or head gasket

plastic parts on v6 are common leak issues

fanatic said:

power steering , coolant and brake fluid

middle empty = leak or head gasket

Click to expand...

great, thanks.

that's worrying about the empty coolant. i noticed a pool of something on the engine block this morning - looked like oil but when I mopped it up it was too liquid. I'm pretty sure I've got an issue with the inlet manifold (it's quite noisy/rattly on tick over) and I read somewhere that the o-rings on the manifold can leak coolant...? so fingers crossed it's that and not head gasket...

I see you have a V6. Always check coolant level weekly on the V6.

The first spot I would look at for coolant loss on a V6 is in the V of the engine near the thermostat housing.

There could be other places too. Let us know if you want to investigate yourself, we can advise more.

Same engineer different car, great thread on this:
Thermostat V6 190 leak & re-fitting - The 75 and ZT Owners Club Forums

I went with the alloy thermostat housing from the person with the nick of Kaiser (on other forums) who is from south Africa, but nodge68 tells me plastic housing are relatively cheap in the UK.

Don't under any circumstances run the engine without coolant in the header tank. If air gets into the cooling system, the head gaskets WILL fail in a few seconds. Be warned.

Nodge68 said:

Don't under any circumstances run the engine without coolant in the header tank. If air gets into the cooling system, the head gaskets WILL fail in a few seconds. Be warned.

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Thanks. I did run it home from where it bought it from.. Hadn't checked properly. Fortunately that was only a few miles.

Filled up the coolant and it emptied. Filled it again and it stayed level. Obvious air escaping from the system through the header tank as I did this.

Will keep a close eye on it.

Tbh, there something obviously wrong with it at the moment so not going to run it a lot until I Dan spend some time on it.

Check the boot it might be hiding in there

jedi said:

Check the boot it might be hiding in there

Click to expand...

:fish: