Trickling water noise on switch off

[NiceCupOfTea]

Chaps,

The last couple of times I've driven the S, when parked up and switched off the engine I could hear a trickling noise, similar to what you what might hear as a toilet cistern refills (after the initial few seconds of rushing water!) over the next minute or so it reduces to a small trickle and then finally a few drips.

It's coming from the engine although possibly ancillaries. No drips under the car and it gets up to temperature nicely and doesn't overheat. Car otherwise running nicely (considering how infrequently I drive it )

I've never noticed the noise before, but of course that doesn't mean it's never happened before. Anything to worry about?

[Alan461]

I think it might be oil draining back in to the sump. Mine does the same.

[v8s4me]

I had something like that on the daily driver. After a month of trying to trace the problem I found a half empty bottle of water under the driver's seat. It was the water sloshing around when I pulled up

[NiceCupOfTea]

v8s4me said:

I had something like that on the daily driver. After a month of trying to trace the problem I found a half empty bottle of water under the driver's seat. It was the water sloshing around when I pulled up

Ha! Not that, had been running on the drive to get the fan to kick in after a little pootle.

[White S3]

Its the coolant draining back into the swirl pot from the expansion pot and/or engine block - the noise will be louder/longer in duration if the water level in the swirl pot is low (but won't happen if too low although you'll probably know it is too low in the summer as the temp gauge will be north of 100degC!). Time to check coolant levels

[NiceCupOfTea]

Cool, thanks. I did check the coolant level recently and it was OK (IIRC it needs to be just a the bottom of the expansion tank if that's right? I do remember that the MIN mark is to be ignored as it was originally in Rover SD1 IIRC!)

[tvrgit]

I wouldn't use the expansion tank to check the coolant level - as you say, the system is a conglomeration of bits from different sources, so the max/min marks are meaningless.

The only way to check coolant level is in the swirl pot - take the cap off when its cold, the level should be just below the neck. What I have found is that mine likes to run about 2 inches below the neck - if I put more in, it blows it out, if it goes quickly below that, there's a leak somewhere.

[jimed]

With my old S3C the swirl pot filled back up as the engine cooled down so it was pretty well full when cold. Without getting into the infamous topic I had the rad cap (with a homemade rubber gasket under it) on the swirl pot and the rad cap was the one that enabled it to suck back as it cooled. That is an important point as the wrong rad cap there will mean the swirl pot will be lower level and that may cause other cooling issues with air in the system.
Jim
PS I've just run for cover ....

[Top Gear TVR]

On TGTVR I hear this every time I stop - its the hot water expanding its way out of the swirl pot into the header I believe...it sucks back later when it all cools.