Major Coolant Loss

[Ronin]

isnt that pite stainnless? how dod it rust?

[MikkiJayne]

Its chromed then painted mild steel. Not sure why they chromed it tbh - it makes no sense when it is then painted black afterwards. Possibly they were trying to reject heat from the exhaust manifold and then decided it looked rubbish so painted it.

Rust on steel cooling parts is usually caused by a constant leak (ie the oil cooler pipe) which then gets topped up with plain water, or, ironically, the coolant being too old and losing its anti-corrosive properties. The latter is quite rare on D2s because they have usually been in bits for something well before the coolant goes bad

[steamship]

Originally Posted by HPsauce

Ah, for those horrible spring band things!
If I encounter those I tend to try and replace them with jubilee clips.

Quite understandable as I don't like them either, but because of where it was I didn't have much choice. After removing the intake pipe to the throttle body, a rubber pipe coming from the SAI and unbolting and pushing aside several shrouded cables, I could just about touch the clip with my fingertips, and I don't have fat fingers.

Originally Posted by MikkiJayne

Rust on steel cooling parts is usually caused by a constant leak which then gets topped up with plain water, or, ironically, the coolant being too old and losing its anti-corrosive properties

"ay, there's the rub" ...and MJ has once again hit the nail on the head. I think it's what they refer to as karma. A combination of little events resulting in disaster.

1. (For those with a good memory) Knowing about an insignificant leak from the radiator so small you can only see a tiny bit of steam coming from the top corner after a long run and not getting around to fitting a new one (which I have sitting here).
2. Topping it up once in a blue moon with said 'plain water' because my garage is a locked shipping container and water is easier to get hold of.
3. Underestimating just how cold it's been these last couple of weeks. I've been living in this house in NI on and off for 50 years and have never seen it so cold (-6 at 9am on the day in question).

We live and learn from our mistakes!

[steamship]

Good new and bad news.

The good news is that I got the refurbished pipe from MJ yesterday, and fitted it today. You can see from the photo a comparison of old and new. Fitted everything back together again, no spares parts left over so started filling it with antifreeze and water...

Now the bad news. There's another leak from the front of the engine, but I think I'll need to take the entire front off to see where it's coming from. Hoping it's something simple like the water pump gasket or water pump, but fearing the worst. Not a very good photo, but it's taken from the top of the right bank, looking down towards the centre

[MikkiJayne]

Damn. Thats not a good place to have a leak.

Lmk if you need to borrow the timing tools to take the belt off.

[steamship]

Cheers MJ. Thankfully I have the timing tools. Bought them from someone on the forum years ago.

I think I'll spend the next while figuring out all the parts I can fit once the front end is off, working on the premise that it ain't the head. Just won't be nice working on it outside during winter.

[steamship]

Well, after a lot of lousy weather and other 'issues' I have to deal with, I decided to start working on the car. Got the headlights off fine and disconnected the loom going to the bumper and disconnected the washer pipe. That was the easy part! The two bolts for the bumper took me about a hour each to get out using a 60cm breaker bar, which leaves me with a question.

In the attached image, you'll see the bolt and the threaded bush it goes through. Near the far right of the bolt, you'll see a bright line. That's about three threads deep of stripped material (both bolts are like that). The question is, is the threaded bush in the image and the attached illustration (#28) threaded on the inside as well, because if it is, mine are both completely stripped? The initial force used to start the bolt removal wasn't that strong (I used a bog standard 1/2 inch ratchet handle), but after that I had to use the breaker bar until the last few threads.