Engine Temp

[MatthewTamea]

Hi All

Bought a Chimaera recently after oggling them for years. Did quite a lng trip over the weekend that took me through the dreaded M5/M6 interchange. By this time I'd been driving about 2 hours and the engine temp was just below 80 degrees. Hitting the traffic jam that is the M6 we just sat there in traffic, and I watched the temperature gauge creep fairly quickly up to about 95 degrees before panicking a bit and coming off the motorway and driving somewhere I didn't really want to go just to get some airflow into the engine and get the temperature down a bit.

I looked up in this book I have about operating temperatures and I think I was just about on the limit of normal traffic temperatures, although sitting in a stationary traffic jam is rather more than just traffic I think. Had a look in the expansion tank (? forgive me if this is bollocks - don't know much about engines!) and it looked quite emppty. I've always been a bit uncertain of adding coolant and what have you to engines, relying more on things getting sorted when serviced. Don't think I can do this with this car though! How often do these things need topping up generally? How much coolant and how much water? How full should the tank be? Etc etc. Any advice would be very welcome to stop me being paranoid.

I did look in the TVR supplied car manual and it goes on about bleeing the air out of the radiator and so on. Is this something I should be doing regularly on topping up or is it an annual or six monthly job?

Thanks

Matthew

[V8 Archie]

First of all welcome! And the silly grin is a bug that TVR have allowed to creep into all models. There is no known cure .

Check water (and oil) regularly - every week or two at first - until you get to know how quickly it uses the stuff. Top up when needed.

Different TVRs use different quantities (even different cars of the same model). I'v added about half a litre of water and a litre of oil in 2,500 miles. From what I've heard on here this seems to be unusually low consumption (especially the oil).

Also try searching the forums for more info.

Editted to add: temperature readings vary widly too (as does the accuracay of said readings), although if it doesn't go higher than 95 in very heavy traffic you probably don't have a problem.

>> Edited by V8 Archie on Tuesday 23 September 15:31

[yiw1393]

Echo the Welcome

Temp guages are notoriously dodgy. I use it as a rough idea only. Start panicking when it goes over 100 is a good rule of thumb. I tend to use the oil pressure gauge - Hotter the engine the thinner the oil gets, hence pressure drops.

Do a search on here regarding temperatures - loads written. Don't start bleeding radiators though! Keep the expansion tank at about 1/3 to 1/2 full when cold.


Rich

[GreenV8S]

MatthewTamea said:

I did look in the TVR supplied car manual and it goes on about bleeing the air out of the radiator and so on. Is this something I should be doing regularly on topping up or is it an annual or six monthly job?

Most people don't seem to bother bleeding the rad - it's something that should ideally be done every six months or so (and any time the cooling system has got very low on water) and the second thing to try if you have any concerns about overheating. The first thing is to make sure the fans actually come on when it gets hot.

[MatthewTamea]

Thanks for the advice!

Seem to be doing well on oil. Had it a month and added about 1-2 litres last weekend after the aforementioned long hot trip. So quite pleased with that!

[the dodger]

Had mine over a year and haven't needed any coolant. Plus I think the only reason I needed oil was because the idiot who serviced it didn't top it up after initial fill. Admit I haven't done very many miles though.......

Expansion tank should always have some coolant (only check when cold) but how much seems to vary.