Duratec Cooling Issue

[ramperford]

Hi,

I am messaging in behalf of my dad. He has a Ford fiesta 2002 (i think) with a 1.25 duratec petrol engine (93k on the clock). He has been having a few issues with engine cooling. It started with a rubber gromet i believe that is plugged in the main cylinder block, we were off to Milton Keynes and i notice minute steam coming from under the bonnet. We stopped and had a look and it was coming from this gromet in the cylinder head. we turned back and this gromet popped and hot coolant was streaming out. my understanding here for this design is that if the coolant becomes pressurized then before blowing the head gasket this gromet should pop first (saving the head gasket from damaging, is this correct??? ). we took it to a garage and he fitted new gromet which was slightly leaking. He strangely put in some copper powder to try and stop the leak and it seemed it worked. Now my dad is having intermittent problems regarding overheating. We took it another garage and asked them to change the water pump. they behaved a bit cocky like "we know what we are doing" and said water pumps hardly go. after some time "they" called us if we wanted to have the water pump changed, bemused we were like "who is the mechanic here you or me"? So they changed the water pump, told us the seal had gone on the pump so that was letting air in and put back on the old fan felt, we lost hope with them after we found that old tensioned fan belt was put on. Now its happening again. I decided to take this into my own hands as i was worried the copper powder may have caused some blockage so myself and my dad did this:

drained the old coolant, which had slight traces of copper muck

replaced the thermostat, thinking that the copper muck must have jammed it (tested old one and it was working in boiling water)

put in some fresh water to clear old coolant

put in holts heavy duty rad flush in the hope it was clear out the copper muck

after some revving drained and a pile of red copper muck came out - complete disbelief!

put in the 2nd part neutralising bottle,

complete drain, and 2nd drain to clean out rad flush chemical

put in new ford coolant with 50/50 mix of water.

waited for air to bleed from the auto bleed pipe into the expansion tank.

then place lid

after this dad was still saying it over heats

Now dad went work early this morning and i decided to follow behind him and hope under warm engine conditions i can check some things out.

the symptoms i can observe are:

The bottom hose of the radiator coming from the thermostat was cold and hard, was expecting it to be hot or warm.

top pipe from the engine head was hot,

i forgot to check if the radiator was warm but it was bitterly cold but i would assume it would be warm.

prior to this when we were draining and flushing the coolant we disconnected the bottom pipe and ran water from the expansion tank and it was free flowing down out the bottom of the radiator. I am not sure how the ford radiator is designed, whether the water flows through the entire radiator down out of the bottom or under pressure the water flows through the radiator and excess water bypasses the radiator and flows straight down but i did think that the radiator might be blocked due to the copper muck but water was flowing free. can someone explain how this works???

my dad was keep worrying about the head gasket going so he kept opening the expansion tank cap to relieve the pressure and the hot water would just gush out and bubbles would appear from the hose pipe and auto bleed pipe. under pressure and normal temp condition we could see this morning that water was flowing continuely out of the auto bleed pipe but not flowing at high pressure. i would assume this would stop if thermostat was fully open, can someone please confirm ???

checked the oil cap and its free of any white muck and the coolant water is pressurised so i am assuming if it wasn't then the pressure would escape into the oil and we'd have a head gasket failure, which it doesn't look it.

One thing that struck me was why the thermostat pipe was connected to the bottom of the radiator not the top so tried my very best to get some pics of the a ford duratec engine bay from google images and youtube but i couldn't find anything at all so i wanted to confirm from you kind people is that should the pipe be connected to the bottom of the radiator (assuming some mechanic forgot where the pipes go if he had taken them off) when some cars have it connected to the top or is it like that on ford and should the bottom pipe coming from the radiator to thermostat be cold, warm or hot???

I do believe that compared to some mechanics we have shown the car to we have done far more work to try and isolate the cause of the problem and that we are not far from cracking this case and do hope that after sorting this out we can enjoy a glass or 2 of whiskey to ward the cold and snow away.

sorry for the exstensive write up but i hope my findings and method help others and can help you diagnose the cause of the problem

thanks,

r.ford

[jmurray01]

OK, first things first, you should never remove the expansion tank cap when it is hot. It will do more harm than good.

It sounds like the head gasket might have already gone, as that would cause overheating.

As for the bottom hose being "hard", that sounds like there is frozen water in it, however you said you used 50/50 Antifreeze. If it were frozen, that would restrict the coolant from circulating, and thus cause overheating.

I suggest you check for white smoke from the exhaust pipe, burning coolant, and loss of power in the high rev range.

Hope this helps.

-Jamie.

[ramperford]

Hi Jamie,

Thanks for your response. I have checked youtube for burning coolant video's and by the looks of it, its nothing like that at all, seems like normal exhaust fumes. i was driving behind my dad this morning and i did not notice any excessive white smoke but i will check for a sweet smell or look at the condition of the spark plug, read on the net if its clean then its effectively steam cleaned, otherwise should look like a matt blackish/grey colour.

if i would clarify i would say its like hard rubber but not frozen solid water and feels like its full of liquid when its cold. When you say coolant burning do you mean it burns in the cylinders as i would have thought it was cause a misfire by dampening the spark plugs, which we are not getting when we drive it.

if the gasket was gone, would we experience loss of coolant water? because i don't believe we are.

i don't think there is any loss of power in the higher rev's as we rev'ed the engine to remove any trapped air or do you mean when we are driving the car that do we experience loss of power in higher rev's? your clarification/assistance and advise would be gratefully appreciated.

what about the direction of the coolant flow? as described would it be from bottom to top

thanks,

r.ford

[jmurray01]

I mean loss of power when driving in high revs.

The hose being cold (but not frozen) suggests to me that the pump is not circulating the coolant.

Are you sure the garage who fitted the new pump were reputable ?

Oh, and the white smoke will smell slightly sweet, and no it will not always cause a misfire if it is in very small quantities.

The coolant usually flows through the pipes in an anti-clockwise direction, if that makes any sense.

[ramperford]

Hi,

Yes although it was the garage owner's young grandson, he showed me the old pump and said seal was gone and seal was letting in air. if it was seized then i would assume i would hear the fan belt sqeal, which it isn't. I'll check the condition of each spark plug tomorrow morning and if its nice and clean then i guess it wrap's it up. my dad drove the car today back from work and said temp was normal all the way but it may well be the cold weather having a cooling effect. Got 6 inches of snow here so taking it for a high revving spin is out of the question :( .

pump is working becuase when i was flushing it with a hose, my dad revved the engine and at the bottom it was gushing the water out fast according to the speed of the engine rev's.

if its anti clockwise then the water is flowing out of the cylinder head into the radiator then towards the thermostat.in my car a 1997 corsa, anticlockwise, it comes out of the thermostat into the radiator then into the cylinder head. that is why i questioned if the pipes were connected wrong way and i needed a photo of someone's 2002/2001 1.25 fiesta (long tail lights) duratec engine pic of the radiator pipes from rad to engine, i believe its an old engine taken from the previous fiesta model, please correct me if i am wrong. If someone can spare me a photo showing the directions of the rad pipes to/from the engine then i would really appreciate it. checked google/youtube for an exploded view but nothing is out there. i could see other exploded views of honda's and toyota's and the thermostat pipe was connected to the top of the rad and that would work out as anticlockwise but my dad's car themostat pipe is connected to the bottom of rad.

thanks once again

r.ford

the car has been to 3 garages and we are not sure what they have done to it and who in their garage has been fiddling with it, spent under £300 altogether and to be honest i have lost faith in garages spending awful an lot of money without any resolution, hence why i am taking this on myself with my dad's help.