radiator blown!!!!!

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yiddi_RRC

New Member
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3
I own a 2.5 diesel p38 auto, i had a minor leak on the passenger top hose, had the AA temporarily fix the problem, then on the night the radiator blew leaving a 7 inche crack on long the top of the radiator, i had asked him if the system needed bleeding, i was told no because the leak was below the water resevoir.

any help is very much appreciated
 
Could be caused by an air lock. After you have replaced the Rad, expansion tank cap off (cold) engine idling, rapidly sqeeze and release hoses to help remove air and keep topping up with anti freeze mixture.
Make sure your new rad has the centre baffle in before you fit it, you can do this by putting a marble or small stone in one of the pipe openings and tilting the rad, it should not come out of the other opening. If it does the rad is no good. don't forget to remove the marble from the original opening.
 
yiddi_RRC said:
I own a 2.5 diesel p38 auto, i had a minor leak on the passenger top hose, had the AA temporarily fix the problem, then on the night the radiator blew leaving a 7 inche crack on long the top of the radiator, i had asked him if the system needed bleeding, i was told no because the leak was below the water resevoir.

any help is very much appreciated
Click to expand...

First thing you need then is a new rad. There should never be enough pressure in the system to do that. It should be relieved by the cap. So a new cap would also be a very good idea.
 
Are you thinking a temp repair caused the rad to split? I`d guess not:
The rad could have split because of long term corrosion, or mechaanical stress(vibration etc), or very possibly excess presure in cooling system.
If the system is under pressure from ...a blown gasket..?... then it could have caused first a leaky hose then caused a blown rad. But I wouldn`t have thought an air lock would cause a blown rad.
The root cause should be checked out tho`. If any underlying fault ain`t cured a new rad may go the same way as the old one.
 
Hate to be the bringer of bad news, but this symptom has been covered in another thread about P38 overheating. The worst case scenario for split radiators, and I found out the hard way with 2 of them, is that you may have a fine crack in your cylinder head and that causes a slow build up of pressure to the point that something has got to give - and that plastic pipe on the rad seems to be a common rupture point. Hope I'm wrong but you need to give it some thought. I could have saved a small fortune if I'd gone straight for the head instead of trying all the other 'fixes' before I had to finally admit it was the head that was causing the system to pressurise.
 
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