Radiator bleed screw?

[White_Beast]

Hi all,

Only just got my GR back on the road after a 4 year period of money saving and backpacking. It's running on just water at the moment but will be renewing it with anti freeze / summer coolant before the cold weather kicks in.

Anyone know if or where the bleed screw is on an FTO to get air out of the cooling system? Or do you have to "burp" it by running the car with the water cap off? Any information or tips appreciated, thanks.

[StewyD32]

Just leave the cap off the collant tower and run it for a while to "burp it" as you say.
If your looking for the drainage plug its at the bottom left of the rad to drain it.

[White_Beast]

Can't find this drainage plug for the life of me. Just undid the bottom hose, drained, then flushed it through. Started the car and left it run a few times, the heaters are coming on now so i guess all the air is out. Been running just water for 4 - 5 weeks after my service including new water pump. Didn't think it would hurt for such a short period of time but the water is very rusty. I'm guessing it's the water jackets? Grrr Not happy.

Guess i'll have to get some radiator flush then an anti freeze with a rust inhibitor? Just when i was getting on top of things as well

[goz_83]

Ah it's not a bad set back, but running only water for anything other than an emergency is a bad idea. I ran my 318 on water when it was losing cooling on the way to Dublin from Leitrim, but after that, it was coolant all the way, even though it was leaking at the time. I must have gone through 20 litres by the time the problem was found and fixed

[White_Beast]

Just to update...

I flushed the system out as much as i could and took all the hoses off and coolant tower and gave them as good a clean inside as possible. Put it all back together and used a radiator flush with rust inhibitor. Went for a 50mile burn, let it cool and flushed it again. I've since refilled with water + anti freeze and id say 95% of the rust colour has gone. Should be fine over winter now but i'll flush again with the radiator cleaner in march which should 100% sort it.

Never running on just water again - never thought it would be problematic over just 1month though. Lesson learnt the hard way.

[Bernard]

Take a look here, it's something I'm thinking about myself at the moment.

[White_Beast]

Take a look here, it's something I'm thinking about myself at the moment.

THAT looks very interesting. I think i know what to ask santa for come xmas now Thanks for the link, i'll research it a little and as long as there are no horror stories, i'll be having some of that. How much coolant does the FTO take? 3 or 4 litres?

[Chris_Heilong]

Take a look here, it's something I'm thinking about myself at the moment.

This sounds interesting, might get this stuff and call out thoses Terraclean guys that do the carbon cleaning on your door step.

[Bernard]

I emailed them last week asking about Irish stockists and got the following response.

Hi Bernard.

Many thanks for your enquiry.

We are in talks with a good few establishments over in Ireland at the moment.

We hope to have a distributor secured by the end of next week as we are receiving more and more enquiries from there.

We can ship direct to you ourselves if you would like us to.

Best Regards.

Nathan.

[Chris_Heilong]

I emailed them last week asking about Irish stockists and got the following response.

Hi Bernard.

Many thanks for your enquiry.

We are in talks with a good few establishments over in Ireland at the moment.

We hope to have a distributor secured by the end of next week as we are receiving more and more enquiries from there.

We can ship direct to you ourselves if you would like us to.

Best Regards.

Nathan.

could be a group buy situation, keep me posted incase you want to order direct

[goz_83]

I woulde very interested in this. I am seriouly looking at changing my coolant hoses to samco hoses, so this would be a good time to do that. How much of this stuff is needed?

Separate question: Are the samco hose kits worth it? I am looking at €160 to get the hoses from murray mtorsport. The kit is different for manual and tips, manual being a bit more expensive. I have blue silicone hoses on the way to dress up the engine bay, but I have no coolant hoses ordered to match. I wouldnt feel comfortable using anything other than what's recommended and I am guessing the top coolant hose is curvy for a reason.

[Bernard]

could be a group buy situation, keep me posted incase you want to order direct

It looks like that could be on the cards.
I asked them about offering a club discount or at least a discount if we organised a group buy and they seemed to go for it.
I should know more in the next day or two so watch this space.

[Chris_Heilong]

nice on mate

[goz_83]

Des Hughes Motors in PortLaoise looks like the first Irish stockist.

[gt94]

Going a bit off topic sorry but was watching Wheeler Dealers during the week, and they used water-free coolant it suposed to last the life of the car anyone ever used or heard of it?

[Bernard]

That's where I saw it first too, it's the same stuff as linked to above.
They even mention Wheeler Dealers on their site http://www.evanscoolants.co.uk/news/wheeler-dealers/38