Hi, new to forum. The car is actually my daughters, its a 2013 Focus 1.6 petrol

she noticed steam from under bonnet. It was coming from a small nozzle on the top of valve cover at the passenger side of engine. Spoke to our regular mechanic and showed him a short video. He's never heard of it!

Has anyone experienced the same and could you give any advice.

Thanks

Is the level of coolant dropping in the coolant reservoir?

Hi thanks for quick response. Yes, level did drop, car did not reach excessive temperature. had to get new reservoir cap this morning and remove the inner part of cap which had stayed behind when she unscrewed it. we got some water in, ran engine for a short while and water was bubbling out of a short nozzle on the valve cover, adjacent to the coil pack/distributor and collecting along the centre of valve cover. This seems a really odd place for coolant or steam to escape.

21 minutes ago, S Stables said:

showed him a short video.

Could you post the video online somewhere so we can see the problem?

Photo attached, had to shrink it to get below 2Mb.

those are HT leads at either side of nozzle

Not too tech savvy, but ill try to put in cloud and post a link,

thanks

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zdf0svtvw31vqe2j2d54h/Focus-video.mp4?rlkey=gkjm4mrp5cz50c7qc9s12li1y&dl=0

Link to video on Dropbox

OH !!!!! never seen that before 🙁

I know a man who will know ........ @TomsFocus can probably tell us whats going on.

4 minutes ago, S Stables said:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zdf0svtvw31vqe2j2d54h/Focus-video.mp4?rlkey=gkjm4mrp5cz50c7qc9s12li1y&dl=0

Link to video on Dropbox

 

17 minutes ago, unofix said:

Could you post the video online somewhere so we can see the problem?

 

2 minutes ago, unofix said:

OH !!!!! never seen that before 🙁

I know a man who will know ........ @TomsFocus can probably tell us whats going on.

Same here! Seems a very odd place for coolant.

there doesn't appear to be any coolant in the oil.

Thank all for your prompt replies

Suspect core plug blown in cylinder head between spark plugs.  If you pull one of the leads I reckon the channel between the camshafts will be full of coolant.

3 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Suspect core plug blown in cylinder head between spark plugs.  If you pull one of the leads I reckon the channel between the camshafts will be full of coolant.

Thankyou for that Tom, its much appreciated, and makes sense. Is the little nozzle some kind of breather vent?

1 minute ago, TomsFocus said:

Suspect core plug blown in cylinder head between spark plugs. 

I was thinking core plug but thought it would probably have emptied the entire cooling system. It does look like just plain water instead of 'coolant' which could well have frozen in the recent cold weather.

2 minutes ago, unofix said:

I was thinking core plug but thought it would probably have emptied the entire cooling system. It does look like just plain water instead of 'coolant' which could well have frozen in the recent cold weather.

Hi, it is plain water because that's what we had put in this morning just to locate the leak rather than waste antifreeze. The intention was to fix the problem and then fill correctly. Thats not to say that she hasn't run the car low on antifreeze!

Just now, S Stables said:

Thankyou for that Tom, its much appreciated, and makes sense. Is the little nozzle some kind of breather vent?

Yes, that's right.  It doesn't connect to anything, just goes straight through the cover to what should be an empty void below.

1 minute ago, TomsFocus said:

Yes, that's right.  It doesn't connect to anything, just goes straight through the cover to what should be an empty void below.

Thanks a lot Tom, yourself and Unofix have been a great help. I'll get it sorted for her and report back the outcome

Thankyou

This video might be of some help

 

2 minutes ago, unofix said:

This video might be of some help

 

Thankyou