Steam from engine bay!
Discussion
About 10mins in to my journey on my way to get a new alarm fitted first thing this morning I noticed a little puff of stuff from the nearside come through the engine vent whilst sat at a light.. it steadily got worse so I found somewhere to pull over by the side of the road to put the bonnet up (tvr style!)
Noticed the smoke looked as though it was coming from around the battery, but I have a voltage meter installed and it was reading no more than 13.5v with the engine running so I discounted the idea of the alternator overcharging and boiling the battery fluid.. I then thought it may be coolant from the expansion tank as the cap seemed a tad loose.
Basically with the car switched off and ignition on there was no smoke/steam, but with the car running it came back. So I removed the cover under the wipers for a better look (and scratched the hell out of my OS wing
) and it was hard to make out but it looked as though it may have been the heat proofing stuff opposite the manifold?
I'm still not 100% sure whether its moisture/condensation soaked into the heatproofing that was burning off or a crack in a coolant pipe somewhere? It seemed to have lost a TINY bit of coolant since the last time I had checked it but nothing alarming.
I let it cool down and carried on my journey for the next 45mins keeping an eye on coolant temps direct from the ECU (had the laptop with me) and it sat at around 75'C as I was on the move with no traffic and it seemed fine the whole way and no steam at the other end...When I noticed the steam for the first time the machanical gauge was reading around 95-100'C although this consistently reads 10'C higher than the ECUs reading
Is it a commonly known area for leakages to occur in the coolant pipework? or quite common for moisture to just be burning off the heatproofing? From what I can tell, some of the heatproofing looks like it has a reflective silver coating (like on the inside of the bonnet) but in this area is seems to have worn off and looks almost like manifold heat wrap?
Bit of a long post, but just want to hear your thoughts?
Also, and quite crucially, this may be a dumb question (but I'd rather ask it and know for sure) but where does everyone top their coolant level up to?
Noticed the smoke looked as though it was coming from around the battery, but I have a voltage meter installed and it was reading no more than 13.5v with the engine running so I discounted the idea of the alternator overcharging and boiling the battery fluid.. I then thought it may be coolant from the expansion tank as the cap seemed a tad loose.
Basically with the car switched off and ignition on there was no smoke/steam, but with the car running it came back. So I removed the cover under the wipers for a better look (and scratched the hell out of my OS wing
) and it was hard to make out but it looked as though it may have been the heat proofing stuff opposite the manifold? I'm still not 100% sure whether its moisture/condensation soaked into the heatproofing that was burning off or a crack in a coolant pipe somewhere? It seemed to have lost a TINY bit of coolant since the last time I had checked it but nothing alarming.
I let it cool down and carried on my journey for the next 45mins keeping an eye on coolant temps direct from the ECU (had the laptop with me) and it sat at around 75'C as I was on the move with no traffic and it seemed fine the whole way and no steam at the other end...When I noticed the steam for the first time the machanical gauge was reading around 95-100'C although this consistently reads 10'C higher than the ECUs reading
Is it a commonly known area for leakages to occur in the coolant pipework? or quite common for moisture to just be burning off the heatproofing? From what I can tell, some of the heatproofing looks like it has a reflective silver coating (like on the inside of the bonnet) but in this area is seems to have worn off and looks almost like manifold heat wrap?
Bit of a long post, but just want to hear your thoughts?
Also, and quite crucially, this may be a dumb question (but I'd rather ask it and know for sure) but where does everyone top their coolant level up to?
Edited by tejr on Saturday 16th October 19:17
Edited by tejr on Saturday 16th October 19:23
if its not leaking or you do not have a lose cap it could be boiling so pushing steam out. Does your fan or fans come on or not. If they fail to come on but your water is boiling then the temp sensor is shot. If they do fail pull the wire off the sensor and your fans will go to fail safe and turn on even if not required.
a point on the ecu... We had mine plugged into the laptop and everything seemed fine with all the sensors but nothing is as it should be sometimes and it was not until we changed the sensor for the third time did we cure my steaming issue. Two sensors that seemed fine where in fact shot and i was mr unlucky for months.
Mine used to do this from time to time, would spit out excess coolant until it found it's own level. However, when I replaced the plastic "Y" piece behind the expansion tank I found the internals of the small black hose that goes to the block had collapsed almost to the point of blocking. I replaced this at the same time, and never had any bother again. ( Well temperature wise, lol.)Might be worth a look.
Allandwf said:
Mine used to do this from time to time, would spit out excess coolant until it found it's own level. However, when I replaced the plastic "Y" piece behind the expansion tank I found the internals of the small black hose that goes to the block had collapsed almost to the point of blocking. I replaced this at the same time, and never had any bother again. ( Well temperature wise, lol.)Might be worth a look.
And what Bluethunder says. Quite common for the 'y' piece to crack or pipe to split to produce little puffs of steam exactly where you have them. Also, happened to me."Basically with the car switched off and ignition on there was no smoke/steam, but with the car running it came back. So I removed the cover under the wipers for a better look (and scratched the hell out of my OS wing ) and it was hard to make out but it looked as though it may have been the heat proofing stuff opposite the manifold?
"
On mine the heat proofing had broken down and what I thought was steam suddenly became flaming steam! Give it a prod and see if it falls apart at the slightest touch (the bit where the manifold is very close to the inner wing). It may have been giving you a timely warning. I was lucky, I was in the garage and a cup of coffee chucked on in the right direction sorted it. Also worth checking the Y in the exhaust manifold for cracks. Of course it could just be a bit of steam after all.
"
On mine the heat proofing had broken down and what I thought was steam suddenly became flaming steam! Give it a prod and see if it falls apart at the slightest touch (the bit where the manifold is very close to the inner wing). It may have been giving you a timely warning. I was lucky, I was in the garage and a cup of coffee chucked on in the right direction sorted it. Also worth checking the Y in the exhaust manifold for cracks. Of course it could just be a bit of steam after all.
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