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Bit of a long story so here goes...
Just recently my Montego TD Estate has had a cold heater. Took ages to warm up too. Since purchase, this car has always had hard water hoses after a run, and would also blow a little water out after a high speed cruise. This was during the summer, and it never ran hot. I knew that the head gasket was weak, so continued to drive normally.
11,000 miles has past since i bought the car in September, so its been in regular use. Because my fiance's parents had moved to Wales, that also meant regular trips over there... hence the miles.. It would always return mid to high 50's MPG, and once got 68mpg, i felt it could have done better
But for the past month of so, struggled to get into the 50's, which i put down to the colder weather.
So there we were, driving to Wales last Wednesday. We got to Redditch, where upon i noticed steam blowing out, albeit minor. Not much i could do, it wasnt running hot so we kept going to Wales. Topped it up when we got there and we had lost 3 litres of water, but didnt lose a drop more until last night. I continued to drive all around Wales, then back home on the Sunday. No problems, apart from a cold heater. Had to drive to work, and covered a further 1500 miles after the water blowing incident.
I tried flushing the coolant system numerous times, putting the cold heater down to a air lock. But everytime the heater went cold, the temp gauge went up.. Then came last night. Driving back from Norwich, it decided to chuck the whole contents of its cooling system into fresh air, nice looking steam from the bonnet again.
Good job i bought that head gasket last week! So last night stripped it down, and found it had blown the gasket ring around No.4 bore. No damage evident to the head or bore, only minor corrosion to the block, caused by weak anti-freeze, which must have been the long term cause of the failure IMO. It seems it had started to corrode the gasket, making it weaker and blowing compression past, hence the constant air locks and erratic temp reading.
The car is now transformed! The heater is nice and warm even before the gauge goes up, no pressure in the hoses and even sounds different.. Alot quieter, and as an added bonus, is more responsive on part-throttle. Time will tell if i get my MPG back, but i think i will!
Moral to this story is, prevention is better than cure, if the previous owners had changed the anti-freeze more regulary, this problem might not have occured so soon. And also, a small problem such as a cold heater turned out to be more serious.. The more obvious tell tale signs of water and oil mixing just did not happen with this HG failure,so it pays to check EVERYTHING! I certainly did, as doing an HG isnt the nicest jobs, especially when you rely on the car for work!
One final point. It goes to show just how strong the Perkins really is. I was expecting the worst, cracked head etc, but no! Mint condition head after 120k, as were the cylinder bores which still had honing marks and no wear ridge at the top. Another interesting point was the pistons. My car is a the later two-stage injection engine, but happens to have the earlier single-stage pistons! It's a 1992 K so should have the correct ones but who knows? It certainly goes well enough, and should easily last 200k plus, if not more hopefully!
Gareth
Just recently my Montego TD Estate has had a cold heater. Took ages to warm up too. Since purchase, this car has always had hard water hoses after a run, and would also blow a little water out after a high speed cruise. This was during the summer, and it never ran hot. I knew that the head gasket was weak, so continued to drive normally.
11,000 miles has past since i bought the car in September, so its been in regular use. Because my fiance's parents had moved to Wales, that also meant regular trips over there... hence the miles.. It would always return mid to high 50's MPG, and once got 68mpg, i felt it could have done better
But for the past month of so, struggled to get into the 50's, which i put down to the colder weather.So there we were, driving to Wales last Wednesday. We got to Redditch, where upon i noticed steam blowing out, albeit minor. Not much i could do, it wasnt running hot so we kept going to Wales. Topped it up when we got there and we had lost 3 litres of water, but didnt lose a drop more until last night. I continued to drive all around Wales, then back home on the Sunday. No problems, apart from a cold heater. Had to drive to work, and covered a further 1500 miles after the water blowing incident.
I tried flushing the coolant system numerous times, putting the cold heater down to a air lock. But everytime the heater went cold, the temp gauge went up.. Then came last night. Driving back from Norwich, it decided to chuck the whole contents of its cooling system into fresh air, nice looking steam from the bonnet again.
Good job i bought that head gasket last week! So last night stripped it down, and found it had blown the gasket ring around No.4 bore. No damage evident to the head or bore, only minor corrosion to the block, caused by weak anti-freeze, which must have been the long term cause of the failure IMO. It seems it had started to corrode the gasket, making it weaker and blowing compression past, hence the constant air locks and erratic temp reading.
The car is now transformed! The heater is nice and warm even before the gauge goes up, no pressure in the hoses and even sounds different.. Alot quieter, and as an added bonus, is more responsive on part-throttle. Time will tell if i get my MPG back, but i think i will!
Moral to this story is, prevention is better than cure, if the previous owners had changed the anti-freeze more regulary, this problem might not have occured so soon. And also, a small problem such as a cold heater turned out to be more serious.. The more obvious tell tale signs of water and oil mixing just did not happen with this HG failure,so it pays to check EVERYTHING! I certainly did, as doing an HG isnt the nicest jobs, especially when you rely on the car for work!
One final point. It goes to show just how strong the Perkins really is. I was expecting the worst, cracked head etc, but no! Mint condition head after 120k, as were the cylinder bores which still had honing marks and no wear ridge at the top. Another interesting point was the pistons. My car is a the later two-stage injection engine, but happens to have the earlier single-stage pistons! It's a 1992 K so should have the correct ones but who knows? It certainly goes well enough, and should easily last 200k plus, if not more hopefully!
Gareth