Coolant loss, thoughts?

Toyotafanboi

Ok, third Toyota with a coolant problem on the trot for me "the best built cars in the world" and all that :rolleyes: :pac:. For those who don't know, 2002 celica 1.8 190bhp.

the coolant level has been consistantly full since i bought the car in February (covered around 6k miles since then).

A fornight ago i done a long drive in the car, approx 4-5 straight hours driving. the next start up directly following this trip (the following morning) when i turned the engine over i could hear a gurgling behind the dash while the car was cranking. Checked the coolant, resevoir almost dry. Topped it up at the time with around 500ml, only been doing town driving ever since and today again, gurgling behind the dash and a near empty resevoir.

I've checked the coolant every second day since i noticed the loss 2 weeks ago and it was spot on every time, so it's going in 'chunks' so to speak.

Now i'm aware that i have a faulty thermostat getting stuck open as often enough the car only gets to around 1/3 on the temp gauge and will stay there all day. Definitely 110% never stuck shut and overheated. I'm fairly sure i'm not dealing with HGF.

I believe these celicas are notoriously hard to bleed, could this just be a bad air lock type situation?

what's a good way to try self diagnose the problem? Monday i'm going to do a coolant and thermostat change and see where that leaves me. Any comments or tips welcome.

PADRAIC.M

any wet floor carpets? Can't see how your stuck open stat could cause a loss, I'd do a hot and cold pressure test, check around the frame of radiator for pink floury residue, check water pump too! I've worked on many of these and owned two. Mine never leaked but I have changed rads and water pumps.

Toyotafanboi

checked the carpets, all dry. I had a look at the rad today as in my previous corolla vvti the rad caused the leak. The celica rad is absolutely haggered, it's in ****e but it did look dry and clean.

The coolant system is pressurised, even when it's needed the top up's with a cold engine there is a decent woosh noise when you open the resevoir cap. Not sure if that's ok or not :P

Worth noting, the car is a reasonably high miler by Irish standards, 149k on it, thereabouts.

Water pump is a good shout, hadn't checked that. What tool would i need to do a pressure check? A link would be great, cheers.

Tony Beetroot

If the thermostat is sticking open you can be as sure as there is shiit in a hen it is sticking closed intermittently too. The factory gauges are terribly inaccurate.

dooroy

I noticed on a few cars over the years that if you had pressure in the system with the engine cold it often meant the HG was starting to fail somewhere.
Noticed it first on a diesel Passat I had many years ago and on a few other cars over the years .
Not a very scientific method I know.
If all is OK I find that there is very little or no pressure on a cold engine when cap is removed .
Can you get a look at the engine from below - I have found that some leaks are only visible from below and no amount of checking from above will pinpoint it .

nd

The one time I'd gurgling behind the dash was after doing a coolant change. It lasted ages and I couldn't figure it out. It turned out I had forgot to put one of the hose clamps back on(not the main hoses).

When I put it back on the gurgling was gone after the first drive.

Interslice

Get the torch out and chack all the plumbing from above and below. You might have to remove some covers to see properly. Check it cold and after a short drive to bting it up to temp. Hose connections, flanges or sensors bolted to the engine and the bleeder valve have all shown up leaks for me in the past on cars with a similar mileage to yours.

Toyotafanboi

Ok, just started at the car. No visible leaks above or below, the whole block is dry.

Cold engine (left overnight) Driven for around 30 seconds to get the car on the driveway to work on it, took out the plugs to check for a "washed plug" (HGF)...

Three plugs were like this

One was like this

is that a washed plug?

In my half educated opinion that looks and felt like oil. I rubbed it off onto a macky d's napkin and again, kind of oily look.



Going to top it up with plain water, bleed it and drive it this evening. The thermostat looks like a 3 hour job or so, DIY so i'm hesitant to do it until i know if i've to do any other bits in that area.

sbsquarepants

Have you tried spilling in a bottle of radweld - that stuff works miracles!

Toyotafanboi

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Have you tried spilling in a bottle of radweld - that stuff works miracles!

I'd rather try do the job right :pac:

Alanstrainor

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

I'd rather try do the job right :pac:

+1!!! As someone who has had a lot of cooling issues in the past, you may as well do this right!

So you're losing coolant, but otherwise the car is running fine? I would think that sparkplug is most likely covered in oil, from when you took it off. Possibly pointing to a leaky rocker cover perhaps? (I've had a similar experience with mine)

Water pump is definitely worth checking. If the car has the correct coolant mix in it, then it should be possible to see a white residue around where a leak is.

It is such a complete pain in the hoop trying to find coolant leaks in any car, so I don't envy the task. I had similar experiences with mine, coolant would suddenly drop, but be fine for a couple of weeks. Turned out to be the rad in the end, which finally catastrophically burst and made it easy to find.

Toyotafanboi

Oooooook, so...

- engine stone cold

- took the expansion tank off and mounted it on the latch like toyota specify and opened both the bleed valve and the lid of the tank itself following the manual.


- topped the coolant up, from below min to max took 100ml ish of coolant

- turned the heater to hot and ran the engine. Sat with it at idle for around an hour. The top rad hose was roasting after around ten mins, the bottom rad hose didn't even get warm until around 45-50 mins in.

- during that hour the temp gauge didn't even reach half way but after the hour the coolant in the resevoir was well over the full mark, almost spilling out And steaming quite a lot.
(This is the temp gauge at the highest it got. you could see by the LCD display that it had one more notch to go before the half way point, operating temp)


-after an hour i decided that the fans weren't going to kick in and the car wasn't going to reach temp and that someone else would probably have established the problem by now.

Put the car back together and took it for a quick spin and the temp gauge never got higher than this 1/4 mark. This is where it sits day to day and what makes me think the thermo is stuck open.

Interslice

Have you a coolant system diagram. You might have a sneaky hose somewhere. Can you get a good view of the hoses feeding the heater matrix? Sounds like your loosing enough that if you can get eyes on it that it should be obvious enough. Only thing is petrol engines get so hot that if its only happening when driving it could burn off straight away. Another thing would be to clean and dry the undertray, if its manky like mine!, go for a spin and check it for a wet patch.

Tony Beetroot

Have you put a new thermostat in?

PADRAIC.M

Yeah she is def not warming up enough, this in itself shouldn't cause coolant loss, check underneath water pump for pink power residue and spend extra time around the rad frame (most common these) your plugs don't show any signs of burning coolant (usually a lot whiter around electrode) the threads of the plug are no indication of what is s going on in the cylinder, only the tip is important

Tony Beetroot

Its getting too hot he said the expansion bottle was above full and almost spilling out and steaming.

irish bloke

Replace the stat and then see where you are. I expect most if not all your issues will be gone

Alanstrainor

irish bloke wrote: »

Replace the stat and then see where you are. I expect most if not all your issues will be gone

+1 here. Clearly a problem with the stat given the temp not rising. May as well fix now.

e46 are difficult to bleed also, my trouble was more that the low coolant light would come on and go off intermittently when I was getting mine right.

Toyotafanboi

Thanks for all the top tips gentlemen! i'm going to make a move on this now (thermostat and reservoir cap), will post up the results. hopefully positive !

Toyotafanboi

Ok, so took my old thermostat out today, does look to be stuck open (?) And there is a good bit of scoring on it. Here it is...


However, i got a thermostat in top part that looked like this and i was given this item based on my cars reg


So i went to toyota and got this part based on my chassis number (same as top part item)!


I am really confused now because the new item(s) are the same length closed as the one i removed is when it's open.


Which doesn't really fit in with the theory?

Toyotafanboi

Diameter wise it fits in fine.

nd

If the old one is stuck open(hard to see from the pic), it's not open by much. I'd install the new one( if it has a jiggle pin be sure to install it at the 12 o clock position).

Tony Beetroot

What is to say the old one was the correct one.

my3cents

Have you tried hanging the old one in a pan of water on a stove, measuring the temperature (if you can) and just watching how much movement there is as the water heats up?

So its not resting on the bottom of the pan hang it on a piece of string from and tie that to a wooden spoon suspended across the pan. You could compare both old and new stats side by side.

I'm sure there will be a youtube video on what you need to do to test the old one.

Tony Beetroot

I wouldn't be bothering with YouTube or wasting any more time on that old thermostat, fit the new thermostat and work on from there.

Toyotafanboi

Fitted the toyota stat. Didn't get it in until very late last night but that's another thread.

Anyway... filled coolant, ran the engine and kept topping up the coolant as the car drank it, temp got to half way on the dash after around ten mins idling and the rad fans came on too.

when the rad fans went off i turned the car off and went to bed. I'l drive it this evening and see how it goes. Initial impressions seem posotive.

Thanks to everyone this far.

sbsquarepants

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

I'd rather try do the job right :pac:

Costs 5 or 6 quid, takes 30 seconds and actually works. I'm puzzled as to what you class as doing a job right?

Cheap, fast and effective - where's the wrong?

I understand that some people treat their cars like one of the family (I certainly wouldn't be in that group!:D) and maybe like working on it as a kind of hobby and that's fine.
Me, I just want the problem to go away as quickly and cheaply as possible - it doesn't come much cheaper or faster than emptying a bottle in!

Black_Knight

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Costs 5 or 6 quid, takes 30 seconds and actually works. I'm puzzled as to what you class as doing a job right?

Cheap, fast and effective - where's the wrong?

I understand that some people treat their cars like one of the family (I certainly wouldn't be in that group!:D) and maybe like working on it as a kind of hobby and that's fine.
Me, I just want the problem to go away as quickly and cheaply as possible - it doesn't come much cheaper or faster than emptying a bottle in!

You obviously dont frequent the motors forum. Toyotafanboi does, and is one of those who "treat their cars like one of the family". If a job is worth doing, its worth doing right.

Alanstrainor

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Costs 5 or 6 quid, takes 30 seconds and actually works. I'm puzzled as to what you class as doing a job right?

Cheap, fast and effective - where's the wrong?

I understand that some people treat their cars like one of the family (I certainly wouldn't be in that group!:D) and maybe like working on it as a kind of hobby and that's fine.
Me, I just want the problem to go away as quickly and cheaply as possible - it doesn't come much cheaper or faster than emptying a bottle in!

I would only consider it a good fix if you are stuck and need the car on the road. It will leave residue in the cooling system and could potentially block the heater.

You gotta find that root cause in these situations!

Toyotafanboi

Just took the car out for a quick blast. heats up real quick to half way, takes just 3 or 4 minutes driving and stays steady at half way.

No gurgling behind the dash (yet), which makes me realise that although i've fixed my faulty thermostat and fitted a new resevoir pressure cap i probably still have a coolant leak? Or is there a scenario where with a faulty thermostat/ pressure cap that coolant could have been forced out the overflow pipe?

sbsquarepants

I have a suggestion:D

Black_Knight

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

Just took the car out for a quick blast. heats up real quick to half way, takes just 3 or 4 minutes driving and stays steady at half way.

No gurgling behind the dash (yet), which makes me realise that although i've fixed my faulty thermostat and fitted a new resevoir pressure cap i probably still have a coolant leak? Or is there a scenario where with a faulty thermostat/ pressure cap that coolant could have been forced out the overflow pipe?

After your drive, stick an unfolded cardboard box under the engine bay. See if you get any drips after an hour or so. The "gurgling" would be your coolant (water) boiling in the reservoir. Same thing happened with my girlfriends mini and it ended up being a cracked thermostat housing.

No gurgling is good, so long as your coolant levels arnt dropping/not seeing and leaks on the cardboard. Cardboard will also help identify where the potential leak is dripping from.

Tony Beetroot

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

No gurgling behind the dash (yet), which makes me realise that although i've fixed my faulty thermostat and fitted a new resevoir pressure cap i probably still have a coolant leak?

Are you still loosing coolant?

Toyotafanboi

Tony Beetroot wrote: »

Are you still loosing coolant?

I don't think so.

Yesterday evening (first time actually driving it and not just idling it since changing parts) i took it out for around 15mins, the coolant was full leaving and a bit below the low mark after the drive, so i topped it back up to full.

Took it out this evening, drove for around 12 miles, checked the coolant around an hour after driving when the engine was cool but not cold and it was just below full, maybe 5mm maximum from where it was when i left so i think it's steadied out, unless i go out in the morning and find it empty.

The interior heater is notably warmer than it used to be, the gauge is steady at half way and the fans kick in and cut out. I've another 10 mile spin to do tomorrow so if it stays steady tomorrow i hope i'm out of the woods.

I made this video of my exhaust on cold start today. The car has spent a few hours just idling the last few days which is a condensation contributor. Am i just being paranoid?

https://youtu.be/mEbot_8_4Yo

Thanks again everyone for the help

PADRAIC.M

Paranoid! Both mine were a bit steamy!! 😀

Toyotafanboi

so, a little update with a photo.



position 2 is where the car used to sit, all day long. more realistically after a few days of driving it now settles into position 3 after 10-15 mins, which is an improvement of sorts.

i have done a few trips, all in and around 10-15 miles or so and so far, so good the coolant hasn't budged. i'm thinking of taking it for a motorway spin this evening just to see how things fare as i'm assuming that just farting around town won't really fully test out the cooling capabilities.

my3cents

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

...i'm assuming that just farting around town won't really fully test out the cooling capabilities.

Any coolant problems I've had have alwasys been worse when farting around town. At constant speed I think the radiator becomes far more efficient.