Ast Warning

[rmagictastic]

About 6 months ago i bought a used metal AST from a tuner, it cost me about £100.

Not gunna name names as thats not wat this thread is about.

Anyhow, i replaced my stock AST, for the new shiney item, to ensure i had no splitting problems.

I have now discovered that it has started leaking from the cap.

So ive put the stock one back on.

So if youve got an AST like mine (below), please just have a check that its not letting a bit of water past the cap seals.

Cheers

Rmaj

[vxer]

According to those in the know (i.e. not me), the AST splitting problems are highly over exaggerated.

The explanation went like this: The AST is often blamed for ruining someone\'s engine by splitting and causing an overheat. However, the root cause of the problem is often a failed seal in the engine which causes the cooling system to over pressurise thereby splitting the AST.

Cheers, Paul.

[Adriansturgess]

When I bought my car it had already had an alloy AST fitted....When I took it in to Rotechniks for its first service they told me that the AST cap was leaking and that this was a common fault on Alloy AST\'s due to the rim not being completely flat. They advised putting a plastic one back on which I did and have had no problems. I think after a number of years of high underbonnet temps they can get brittle and split but maybe you just need to replace them every 5 years or so!!!!

[davegttph1]

This is mine, probably the same as yours, mine has been leaking from the cap aswell but Im unsure if thats anything to do with the AST itself as its been fine for the last year or so until now, it may be leaking because of other problems (suspected engine failure :reallymad )

[Adriansturgess]

Isn\'t it better to assume something simple first before suspecting engine failure? Maybe worth changing the AST or at least the AST cap!!!

[davegttph1]

Isn\'t it better to assume something simple first before suspecting engine failure? Maybe worth changing the AST or at least the AST cap!!!

Changed the cap already but I doubt thats the problem when it started on 1 rotor and chucked some white smoke from the exhaust Seal failure by my guessing.

[RobbieRX-7]

Isn\'t it better to assume something simple first before suspecting engine failure? Maybe worth changing the AST or at least the AST cap!!!

To be honest i can\'t blame dave for thinking this because In my opinion this is the biggest problem i have with these cars and that is the fear of water seals going. I even bought a rebuild dvd thinking mine were gone, but turned out to be a leaking pipe under the alternator. I would definitly check everything else before splashing the £££ though dave

[davegttph1]

Thanks Robbie, the car is sat feeling sorry for itself at the mo, changed the cap etc and it started on the one rotor kicking out the smoke. I cant see a split pipe causing that, Im out of ideas. hoping to ring Pip this afternoon to see what he can suggest, it might be a case of just driving it to him and hope it makes it without overheating (dunno when I have time to do that though as Im going on holiday next wednesday so not ideal to take it up there and leave it for a week with no contact to WGT )

Really feel gutted, I dont have the money to rebuild it, luckily Im renewing my mortgage this month so Im gonna take a couple of spare grand on top for the sake of what it\'ll cost me then Im covered if its definately the worse, still not happy about it though.

[ro284]

I had an alloy one similar, i won\'t say where it came from, but the neck of the cap was only a push fit into the body, it was not welded!got missed! could be a problem there!!it was replaced very quick by supplier, no problems since! is the cap a 0.9 bar  or 1.3 bar?
Bob

[Grizzly]

Urm why don\'t you tighten the Cap up?

Its not hard to do, If you take the cap off and turn it over you\'ll see two prongs on the inside edge of the widest part of the cap.

The idea is to Get some Pliers and gentaly Bend the two Prongs in (towards the Rubber seal) don\'t go to much at a time or it won\'t go back on, you want it so it takes more pressure to screw the cap on.

I\'ve done this on Three Alloy AST\'s now and they have stopped Leaking. For some reason just replacing the cap with a new one some times does\'nt work.