Help Please. Trying to keep KA alive

[charlouking]

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone could give me any ideas or advice.

I have had my old 2001 KA for about a year now, last week when driving home it overheated and cut out. Opened the bonnet and steam was coming from the engine bay. There was no water left in the radiator bottle, so we flushed it with hot water. The water started to leak from underneath. Looking at the car the next day we find that the heater control valve pipe has corroded and come off.

This issue has now been fixed with a new valve control piece, however when the engine is started there is now water leaking from the exhaust. It drips when the engine is revved. There is also a small amount of white smoke (water vapour, I think). We drove the car 10 minutes down the road and water was still dripping when revved. There is no white gunk in the oil and the coolant levels don't seem to be dropping. There is also currently no antifreeze in the system.

We have thought about putting some WondarWeld into the coolant system as there may be a head gasket problem.

Any advice or help here would be greatly appreciated, it is an old car so don't want to be spending much money on it.

Thanks in advance,

Charlotte.

[craigie53]

probably would be better changing your head gasket, I've not read good things about wondarweld, could end up making your car worse.

[jmurray01]

If you are serious about keeping it on the road, get the HG changed.  If not, throw some K-Seal or similar into the coolant and see how it goes!  It worked wonders on our old Rover 216 which had a completely blown HG (oil/coolant transfer) and it ran fine for over 6 months and probably would have for longer if it wasn't scrapped.

[Tdci-Peter]

On 17/09/2016 at 4:10 PM, charlouking said:

We drove the car 10 minutes down the road and water was still dripping when revved. There is no white gunk in the oil and the coolant levels don't seem to be dropping. There is also currently no antifreeze in the system.

We have thought about putting some WondarWeld into the coolant system as there may be a head gasket problem.

I have also used K-Seal with success on a Vauxhall Vectra. However it needs anti-freeze to work.

I advise putting anti-freeze in. If the exhaust smells of antifreeze, than leaking HG is likely. And/or wait till a drop in coolant level is seen.

On that age of car, a new HG may not be worthwhile, so a leak sealant may be the best option. But check there is a real problem first.