Losing Water - Rad breathing

Morning!

I'm losing a fair amount of coolant - my 200tdi (93) drains the expansion tank within a few days. No mayo in cap and it runs fine so no suspecting gasket failyre. Can't see any leaks (or any obvious leaks)
Noticed the other day the rad was steaming through the grill when I stopped. I had the front trim all stripped off recently for some welding and the rad didn't look damaged. Is this a common fault and how hard is a rad swap on one of these?

had same problem a while back ran without cap on and had no problems untill i changed rad i think it was leaking when under pressure

Yeah mine's quite noticeable (especially with the weather being this cold)

Looking on fleabay, 'new' rads are about £100...I know it's not a lot but there are no 2nd hand ones!

Would like to rule it out before I commit to getting a replacement but I can't think of what else it could be.

If you can see steam from the rad when your stopped then its almost certianly a leak thats steaming off on the hot metal.

Run the system unpressurised for a while and see if it looses water then.

Do I just loosen the xpansion tank cap to do that?

There seem to be two types of rads in ebay.. one described as original all metal and the other plastic with alloy fins. Similar prices - anyone have an opinion on which is better?

adrian hollister said:

There seem to be two types of rads in ebay.. one described as original all metal and the other plastic with alloy fins. Similar prices - anyone have an opinion on which is better?

Click to expand...

try and get an OEM one, i have a few spares here and the difference in quality between the orginal and aftermarket plastic version is very noticable

The plastic ones are pretty dire - the metal corrodes around the plastic and they start leaking around the edges. My brother bought a couple for his Capri over the years and wished he hadn't wasted his time.