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Hi all,

I became a proud owner of a hoody three weeks ago and already having fun battling water and oil. The car has a 2.0 litre Zetec with a Race line water Rail. The previous owner had a 330 ml coke bottle in the nose as an expansion bottle. The car ran a good temp, but when the water heated up the bottle over filled and leaked. I have now put a full size mondeo expansion bottle in the nose but after a test run seemed to run to 100degrees celcius but is idling at about 90celcius. I have 2 say though the temp gauge is all over the place and may not be that reliable. so after all that what size expansion bottle are people running if at all? plus after having the sump resealed am spurting oil all over the place from the sump breather. Do i need a catch tank or could there be something up with the motor. cheers chris

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The raceline water-rail is a poor design. It does not site the thermostat in the hot water outlet flow from the head. Instead it places it at the end of the rail where the water is static. Their own instructions advise (or used to) you just let excess water squirt out and be lost when hot to allow the water to establish its own level. No header or overflow needed. So having bought one of these I promptly sold it without ever fitting it. As a temporary solution drill two 3mm holes in the thermostat plate to allow some water flow which will allow hot water to get to the stat more quickly. Taking out the stat may seem like a good plan but it will allow the engine to run cool and zetecs wear rapidly if you do that.

A better solution is to fit the original ford thermostat housing with either a heater off the driverside medium hose outlet or a warm up bypass off the left medium hose. They T in to return to the lower rad hose. I run a simple pressurised rad cap and overflow pipe to non pressurised bottle from the rad neck, thus bleeding air from the rad. Diagram below.

plus after having the sump resealed am spurting oil all over the place from the sump breather. Do i need a catch tank or could there be something up with the motor.
Not sure what you mean by 'the sump resealed' but no it shouldn't blow oil out. I run pipes from the block breather on the passenger side of the engine and the cam cover but nothing comes out of them. I have a coke can they blow into but it's dry. Sounds like your motor has a problem. Check engine is not overfilled with oil. Compression test would be a good starting point.

 

Nigel

 

Pis below shows heater and warmup bypass circuits. Run one or the other, not both.

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Guest chris brown

As Nigel says the best answer is to fit the original ford thermostat housing. Unfortunately it won’t fit in the 2b without some rather serious modifications to the chassis. So your only answer, as I see it is to do as Nigel says and drill a couple of holes in the stat flange. When you refit the stat make sure one of the holes is at the top, this helps with bleeding any air out of the system.

When you say oil is spurting all over the place from the sump breather. Is this just an open breather with no pipe attached? If so then fitting a length of pipe and bringing it up as high as is practicable in the engine bay (so as to allow oil mist to condense on the sides of the pipe and run back into the sump) and terminating it into a catch tank

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The raceline water-rail is a poor design. It does not site the thermostat in the hot water outlet flow from the head. Instead it places it at the end of the rail where the water is static. Their own instructions advise (or used to) you just let excess water squirt out and be lost when hot to allow the water to establish its own level. No header or overflow needed. So having bought one of these I promptly sold it without ever fitting it. As a temporary solution drill two 3mm holes in the thermostat plate to allow some water flow which will allow hot water to get to the stat more quickly. Taking out the stat may seem like a good plan but it will allow the engine to run cool and zetecs wear rapidly if you do that.

A better solution is to fit the original ford thermostat housing with either a heater off the driverside medium hose outlet or a warm up bypass off the left medium hose. They T in to return to the lower rad hose. I run a simple pressurised rad cap and overflow pipe to non pressurised bottle from the rad neck, thus bleeding air from the rad. Diagram below.

Not sure what you mean by 'the sump resealed' but no it shouldn't blow oil out. I run pipes from the block breather on the passenger side of the engine and the cam cover but nothing comes out of them. I have a coke can they blow into but it's dry. Sounds like your motor has a problem. Check engine is not overfilled with oil. Compression test would be a good starting point.

 

Nigel

 

Pis below shows heater and warmup bypass circuits. Run one or the other, not both.

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Hi Nigel,

Thanks very much for your reply. The cooling systems seems to be ok at the moment. I have topped the system up and put a slightly bigger expansion bottle in the nose, as i am not to technical i struggle to describe the set up, but there is possibily a ford branded thermostat housing on the end of the water rail.. i think! The oil however is still spurting out of the breather hose which is about 10mm in diameter and runs up the side of the block to the cam cover. The hose runs off the block on the passenger's side like i think you said your engine does. I have checked the oil level on the dip stick and comes to the lowest mark which i am assuming is low. Could this be inaccurate due to sump design? The car was breathing a bit heavy when i brought it but has got alot worse since taking it to my local mechanic who changed the sump gasket. I am tempted to get a catch tank but i feel the engine shouldn't be spurting oil out with such ferocity. Any suggestions would be highly welcome. thanks chris

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As Nigel says the best answer is to fit the original ford thermostat housing. Unfortunately it won’t fit in the 2b without some rather serious modifications to the chassis. So your only answer, as I see it is to do as Nigel says and drill a couple of holes in the stat flange. When you refit the stat make sure one of the holes is at the top, this helps with bleeding any air out of the system.

When you say oil is spurting all over the place from the sump breather. Is this just an open breather with no pipe attached? If so then fitting a length of pipe and bringing it up as high as is practicable in the engine bay (so as to allow oil mist to condense on the sides of the pipe and run back into the sump) and terminating it into a catch tank

Hi chris thanks very much for your reply to. Seems like i have alot to think about

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The stat housing is a ford part but not from a zetec. More from crossflow/precrossflow and twink era. The stat sits in the rail with the housing on top. Undo the 2 allen/torx bolts to remove the housing, which exposes the stst which you can remove and drill 2 X 3mm holes for starters and reassemble. This allows enough flow forward to the stat to get it working properly without risking overcooling. While you have the stat in your hand it's worth boiling it up in a pan on the stove and checking it is fully opening.

 

The oil problem. It sounds like your cam cover may not have the splash plate in it. I only have a silvertop cam cover handy (blacktop is similar) but you can see oil should not be able to splash out the cam breather. Whip the cover off and have a look to see if the splash plate is fitted. Can you confirm there is a breather also on the left side of the engine block below the exhaust manifold.

 

Nigel

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The two 3mm holes in the stat work fine for me having a water rail, and have done for over 2 years. Its a poor design as others say but this should make it work.

 

My engine only breathes through the cam cover outlet and I get no visible oil from it at all and my engine doesn't use a drop.

 

Does sound like you may have engine problems. Was it one of the cars on ebay recently? One of them was Richard Hall's old car which had quite a hard life for a while, I remember him doing 200 miles round Donington one day!

 

Compression test sounds like a good way forward and then report back. With zetecs its often better to buy a secondhand unit (or a new one from GBSC) and fit it than repair major internal problems as it is cheaper than a rebuild.

 

Good luck

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The two 3mm holes in the stat work fine for me having a water rail, and have done for over 2 years. Its a poor design as others say but this should make it work.

 

My engine only breathes through the cam cover outlet and I get no visible oil from it at all and my engine doesn't use a drop.

 

Does sound like you may have engine problems. Was it one of the cars on ebay recently? One of them was Richard Hall's old car which had quite a hard life for a while, I remember him doing 200 miles round Donington one day!

 

Compression test sounds like a good way forward and then report back. With zetecs its often better to buy a secondhand unit (or a new one from GBSC) and fit it than repair major internal problems as it is cheaper than a rebuild.

 

Good luck

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Hi Andy,

Thanks for the reply will take it to be checked out, all though has made me a bit worried 200 miles around donnington is worrying. The car was on E-bay about a month ago and i brought it from guildford. Prior to that she was in Grantham broght from a Honda bike dealership. I don't know if a Richard Hall owned the car but a Mr Lawson did two owners ago. The reg is E41 FRA. if you have any knowledge of this car i would be very grateful. Many thanks chris

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Yes this was my old car one of the fastest hoods out there, it looks like some one has played with the oil breather system. the cooling system was working very well you can check the real temp by connecting the Ecu up to a computer and look at the data in real time you will be able to see the theromstat opening and closing, if you want a details on the car give us a call

 

Richard

 

ps

 

Andy your car had a harder life with over fueling ?

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It is easy to do lots of miles on a track day we did over a hundred at Landow 2 years back we stop and chat a lot letting car cool down etc

 

Stephen

Good point mine did over 100 miles on the rollers at Emerald when it went there, and was absolutely thrashed as well! Continual power runs up to 6800 rpm were interesting to watch to say the least!

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Andy your car had a harder life with over fueling ?

May well have done for a while but it hasn't suffered yet, got similar power outputs to your old one on the rollers at Emerald and compression, cooling, running etc is spot on 2000 miles on.

 

Lets hope we can help Chris get his car sorted so he can get on and enjoy it.

 

Chris - where are you located? There may be one of us local to have a look, or post some photos of your breather setup on here for us to advise.

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