Ford Fiesta Mk5.

Cass

Looking for suggestions moreso than solutions, but they're welcome too.

Young lads car has been parked up for almost 8 months and he is gifting it to a family member so had to get it back on the road. It had a current NCT when parked up, passed in August last year, so the NCT was just up. The car was started infrequently while parked up. Could be once a week, then once a month, and kept fairly right with regular cleaning, checks, etc.

Anyway NCT was today and it failed. I seen the list he brought home and thought the worst as there were 11 items. However checking them revealed four were older tyres (still good threads, just a little old), and the other 7 were minor faults such as CV boot crack (causing minor leak), brake hose from line to hub perished (even though the car passed the brake test with flying colours). All in all I've priced the repairs at about €60 in total, and about an hour/hour and a half to do. So a little good news.

One thing that happened, and it wasn't a fail as its not a tested item, was a sudden & according to him, bad coolant leak at the centre. When he got home I ran the car for about 15 to 20 minutes to see what the issue was. I noticed a small leak on the thermostat housing while waiting, but it was small. A necessary fix but not the problem. After the 20 minutes the expansion tank started to "bubble" and the coolant began to spill quickly out from under the cap.

My initial thoughts were head gasket, but a check of the oil cap and exhaust showed no signs of gunk and no smoke at all, let alone white smoke.

As said the thermostat housing was leaking. I tested the thermostat in a jug of near boiling water (about 98C). The thermostat is set for 82c but it took 20+ seconds in the near boiling water before it started to open, and then it done so slowly and it took about another 20+ seconds to fully open. Ran it under cold water and it closed quicker than opeing, but not fast. So might be a little faulty but is being replaced regardless as its silly not to when the hosuing unit is off.

The water pump will also be replaced as I'm doing the V-ribbed belt. My last port of call is a new expansion cap.

My reason for the long post is simple. The NCT stuff will be a piece of cake. The coolant leak is bothering me NCT fail or not. No point in the family member getting a free car that drops it's guts when it get hot. I've thought off as much as I can before entertaining a head gasket issue. Another one would be the rad/fan not kicking in. Never actually noticed, but will check again tomorrow.

However is there anything else I should look to. As I said at the beginning the car was sitting up for 8 months, but never presented with this issue before being parked up. While it was ran for a short while now and then, essentially it has had 8 months for things to "rust up", gunk up and basically stick from non use.

Thanks in advance.

Cass

Update if anyone has any ideas.

Changed the water pump, thermostat, thermostat housing, coolant, expansion cap, and coolant temp sensor. Filled the expansion tank, and keppt topping it up until the air bubbles stopped. Ran the car to running temp with no bubbling. Once it got to temp the fan kicked in (idling car), but I was expecting the level of coolant in the expansion tank to drop once the thermostat opened, which it didn't. Anyway the new cap didn't stop the issue and was spitting. Think its a poor fit and will replac with OEM part when i can get to Ford.

Another issue was no hot air in the cabin. Checked the pipe going into the matrix and its roasting hot in one part, hot in another, warm, then cool, into cold as it goes to the matrix. There is no heater valve on this model so I thought blockage. Took everything apart including hoses into matrix. No leaks in the cabin, and when I ran a garden hose into the matrix it came out with the same pressure so no blockages. Checked all hoses from expansion tank to rad and took off any I could while flushing the rad, and everything I couldn't remove.

In short I can find no blockages, no issues, and have replaced essentially the entire cooling system. So I'm stumped. Reading various other forums it sems others have had this issue describing the exact same problems with no solutions. So I'm still searching.