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Hello from Paula and her Vitesse


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2 minutes ago, Pete Lewis said:

red  coolant ?????   what antifreeze are you using   OAT is pink  and should not be mixed in sysytems that previously had Glycol  ( Blue) 

there are glycol based REDs   from Comma and others   so hopefully you have one of those i wonder if some clown has upped the bonnet and given you a spill to worry about ???

the jiggle pin is just visible on this JP pic   but a 3mm  hole drilled in the rim will also work   without an air bleed the stat will air lock til it starts to open

many dont have this important little thingy

Picture of THERMOSTAT 82 DEGREES SER11(GTS101)

Pete

 

 

 

I ordered it from the club shop. I’ll check for that. Be interesting to see if the old one has the hole

I use 4 life coolant. Have for a few years now

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I'm more than happy with the anti freeze from my local supermarket, does the job is cheap so replacing it (which I did a couple of weeks ago) regularly and/or topping up is straight forward. Plus in an emergency water can be used.

Happened to me 4 years ago. Went in the Herald to check out locations to watch the tour de France pass locally. Didn't have any anti freeze in the boot, not even a bottle of water for me. The thermostat housing cracked. I was on a small country lane and just looking around for sighs of habitation when a car pulled up all they had was a small bottle of water which they gave me. Looking along the lane towards a farmhouse I saw horses in the field. Horses = water. Sure enough within reach was a huge trough of the stuff, several fills of the bottle and careful return home . . couldn't have done that with the new fangled stuff.

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Water works for me, in fact the poor Herald seems to have seen nothing else in the years prior to my ownership. Now it gets blue antifreeze too.

There's a strange intermittent water leak - some days I go into the garage and find a pool under the car, others, nothing. I haven't tracked it down yet.

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Just got back from a test drive and I’ve got the bubbling head gasket thing again. At the front on the engine behind the water pump.

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t doing that yesterday. I guess it’s time to tighten the head bolts and hope for the best again?

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Mentioned this before on here. Live in a fairly hard water area so I use distilled water from the dehumidifiers in my rad along with blue anti freeze. Always carry a small bottle of water in the boot just in case of a similar situation. Can't be bothered with the new fangled stuff. Water was good enough for my father and his father before and....

 

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3 hours ago, Paula said:

Just got back from a test drive and I’ve got the bubbling head gasket thing again. At the front on the engine behind the water pump.

Sorry Paula but I wonder if this is connected with the water dumping ie the head gasket allowed gas into the coolant system😟

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Re torquing the head didn’t work. But I’ve a confession to make!

I set the torque wrench to 62 not 42! My bad eyesight read the numbers wrong.

I torqued about 6 of them before thinking this doesn’t feel right. Then once I realised my mistake I just did the rest as tight as I dared.

So as long as I haven’t ruined everything I guess a new head gasket is the next step. 
oh dear 

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41 minutes ago, Paula said:

So as long as I haven’t ruined everything

If it's holding then you're probably OK for now, but when you do the head gasket you'll probably need to replace the studs and nuts. I'm finding my torque wrench completely illegible these days.

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14 minutes ago, NonMember said:

If it's holding then you're probably OK for now, but when you do the head gasket you'll probably need to replace the studs and nuts. I'm finding my torque wrench completely illegible these days.

Getting old! 

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youre lucky the nuts have not stripped  if and when you dive into heads off   look into buying washer faced nuts from mini spares (3/8 x24 UNF) and 

make sure the studs are clean threaded and not signs of streatch due to the high torque you applied  

the 1600 has a steel shim gasket  and it does need something like wellseal coating on the faces ( its the only one triumph say seal in the WSM ) 

keep us involved when you decide what to do 

Pete

 

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Might be the cat? Tastes like water, though.

The puzzling thing is that it's intermittent - one day a quarter pint under the radiator, next day the same under both front and rear of the engine, next day: no leak at all. I just keep the rad topped up until I work out where it's leaking from.

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19 hours ago, johny said:

You could try pumping the system to pressure with a foot pump (must have a pressure gauge) connected to the radiator overflow and leave it for a while to see if anything comes out?

I'll do the head gasket first and then check again. Sounds so simple when you say it fast!

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