Hi everyone, I'm located in Australia and have a HDJ100R with 1HDFTE engine. I'm struggling with this recent problem where I'm losing coolant. I replaced the radiator cap as well as radiator and looked for any leaks as well. Old radiator was in good condition but coolant was rusty so I did a full flush, replaced the thermostat and did a bleeding to take out any air bubbles as well. This hasn't fixed the problem and I'm still losing coolant. I tracked the level of my overflow bottle as well and it does look like the overflow bottle gets some of the coolant I'm losing as the level gets higher. May be radiator isn't pulling coolant back from the overflow bottle for some reason?
If I'm pushing the car and towing a caravan, I can see marks of coolant in the engine bay expelled from the overflow bottle.
So I thought this must be great gasket, got a block tester and did the test a couple of times. There was no colour change indicating no exhaust gas in the radiator, or at least not at a noticeable level. I did a control test by just using crank case breather and the liquid turned green so the test is working as well.
The only other thing indicating a head gasket failure is when the engine is hot and I have the radiator cap open, I can sometimes see some small bubbles emerging (). But I don't know whether that's conclusive enough.
Any ideas what this could be before I take a plunge and take the head off assuming a head gasket failure?
Some details about the car.
- 340k kms
- has had a full engine rebuild by the previous owner around 80k ago
- I have upgraded the turbo to gturbo red wheel, 2nd stage intercooler and tuned to run on 21.5PSI producing about 175kw at the wheels
- I did about 10k after the upgrade without losing any coolant etc
Thanks in advance for any ideas.
If I'm pushing the car and towing a caravan, I can see marks of coolant in the engine bay expelled from the overflow bottle.
So I thought this must be great gasket, got a block tester and did the test a couple of times. There was no colour change indicating no exhaust gas in the radiator, or at least not at a noticeable level. I did a control test by just using crank case breather and the liquid turned green so the test is working as well.
The only other thing indicating a head gasket failure is when the engine is hot and I have the radiator cap open, I can sometimes see some small bubbles emerging (). But I don't know whether that's conclusive enough.
Any ideas what this could be before I take a plunge and take the head off assuming a head gasket failure?
Some details about the car.
- 340k kms
- has had a full engine rebuild by the previous owner around 80k ago
- I have upgraded the turbo to gturbo red wheel, 2nd stage intercooler and tuned to run on 21.5PSI producing about 175kw at the wheels
- I did about 10k after the upgrade without losing any coolant etc
Thanks in advance for any ideas.
