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Well the Brumby needs some work. I drove it all the way from Ayr to just north of Mt Carbine with the temperature guage sitting just under the half way mark before it climbed into the dangerous level. Stopped and let her cool down and kept going another 20klms or so to the Palmer River. Stopped again and after letting her cool down checked the water level and realised that there is pressure building up in the radiator. After another 20klms more heat and more pressure build up. I have checked and there is no water in the oil and can not see any water leaking from the head gaskets. I am hoping that all it is will be a thermostat is buggered and stuck causing the pressure build up.

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Possibly thermostat or a blockage by the sounds.
Just take the thermostat out as you don't really need it. She'll just tale a little longer to warm up
See how it goes and go from there if your still having problems.

Thats the plan mate. I have bought a new thermostat, gasket and even a new radiator cap just in case. I also have some good quality cooling system flush to run through her. At this point in time while I am only doing short runs to work and back there is no problem with her overheating. So when I get properly settled I will pull it all out. This was the first long trip she has done since I bought her and prior to that I dont think that she had been run for quite a long time which goes a long way to what you are saying in that there might have been a build up of crap in the system which has then come loose and jammed the thermostat.

How did you go with the over heating issue?

I'd also like to add, make sure you run a thermostat in the engine, or you will over heat your engine even worse. The thermostat is there to regulate flow and without it, your radiator wont have enough time to remove the heat from the cooling fluid, thus in turn allowing hot coolant back in to your engine and in turn making things hotter. If your car runs better without it, it's because your radiator is blocked or your water pump isn't working correctly.

With all the moving and setting up new house havent had chance to get to it yet. I am lucky that its only a couple minutes drive from home to work and she doesnt have time to heat up. Once I get everything done I will let you all know how it goes.

OK now I am no mechanic by any stretch of the imagination however I managed to pull the thermostat out today and I think that I have found the problem. Besides all the crap in there the thermostat was stuck in the open position. I have since cleaned the entire system and put it back together with a new thermostat and gasket only to find out it is leaking around the bottom of the thermostat housing. Pull it all back out and throw away the gasket and get some gasket goo. Put it back together and we will see how it goes.

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Just filled up the radiator again and gave her a quick run. No leaks. All I have to do now is take her for a run to see how the temp goes. Fingers crossed.

Sheesh! that T/stat housing looks like it has some unknown species of coral reef growing in it Radiator flush would be a good idea, also use a decent coolant and not water.

Yeah mate all done. Put some good quality cleaner through the system and then flushed it out. Ran it again with just fresh water in her and again flushed the whole system out. Hopefully now that it is clean and I have some good coolant in there things should be good. It was the only thing that I didn't do when I got her was to replace the thermostat and do an internal check. Lesson learnt.

Yikes!!! Coral reef nothing, whatever intelligence built that habitat has since developed its own transport and moved on.

Looks like a large-scale buildup (sorry)... Seriously though, did you use pre-mix coolant or mix-your-own? If mix-your-own I'd suggest using demineralised water as looks like there's been 'hard' water in there, maybe from the area?

And keep an eye out for misbehaviour as there are a lot smaller passageways/galleries for that stuff to have built up in (or eaten out- sometimes it's the scaly deposit plugging the gap/hole). Might be worth a second flush/refill in a short while.

Drove to Cooktown and back via Mt Carbine approx 14 years ago, enjoyable road that and more scenic than I expected (just before they finished tarring the whole lot), loved Cooktown too.

Well took her for a bit of a run today and the temp guage only got to half way mark so hopefully the problem has been sorted

Woohoo.. crossing fingers and toes

Looks like there was some crud inside the cooling system. If you have it all sorted, just be sure to put some high quality coolant in there. I recommend a 1 litre bottle of Tectaloy Gold and fill the rest with demineralized water.

Interesting you mention the Tectaloy Gold cause thats what I put in her.

Gone Fishing wrote:Interesting you mention the Tectaloy Gold cause thats what I put in her.

Excellent. Did you use the whole bottle? and did you use tap or demin water?

No I only used about one third of a litre as the directions stated that one litre will do 15 litres and I used tap water. However, given the amount of crap that was in there I might do another flush in a month or two just to make sure that I got everything out and then top it back up with the last two thirds and demin water.

Don't skimp on the demineralized water, buy more than you need so you don't end up topping up with tap water Chlorine and salts in water are bad bad news for pretty much any metal and can cause serious corrosion in engines. Sounds like the flush did the trick then, a result is always nice.

The good thing about the Tectaloy Gold is that you can use it with tap water (as it has ingredients to offset the chemicals in tap water) but as per the instructions, it's to be changed earlier than if using demin water.

I only use the full bottle as it's priced really well and I feel the more 'thicker' I can make it, the better protection I will get. I think the mix they put on the bottle is for cars like falcoons or commondores. Subaru coolant itself it very thick and provides a huge protection from alloy corrosion.

Silverbullet wrote:Sheesh! that T/stat housing looks like it has some unknown species of coral reef growing in it

Too right SB!!! I hope a flush or three was put through this cooling system before the coolant was used!!

That's simply incredible. What were they using, sea water??

Gone fishing, I'd be glad that it's still going! I wonder if you've got any barnacles on the water pump impeller?!

Hope it's all sorted now though. Keeping it clean should keep it running for a long time to come

Cheers

Bennie

Thanks for the advice guys. As El Freddo said my next concern is the water pump. With all this goodness running around inside the block I am half expecting the water pump to give up and not be able to handle it. But I will cross that bridge when and if it comes.

Agree that looks like tap water coral :P The water here in townsville is so chlorinated that when i filled my spa the otherday i had to only add like 170ml of chlorine to a 2000L spa.. lol Hate to think what it does to us....