Strange Water Problem :S

[wiggman2030]

I have a strange water problem with my rex.  Ok first of all i\'ll start with one senario:

On a cold start sometimes i get a annoying coolant buzzer going off in my ear telling me to put in coolant, so fair enough i do it. After a small drive when the car is nice and warm i turn it on again and huh!? it goes off again (yes annoying). So knowing that the car is warm i\'m slightly hesistant about taking the radiator cap off in case i get a face full of coolant sprayed at me but no... there really wasn\'t any coolant in there.  Until all of sudden water starts rising from the radiator and filling the cap until it\'s nice and full without me putting anything in at all. :S

Second senario, before a cold start i check the coolant levels.  Most of the time it is low (enough for the buzzer to abuse my ears again). So just out of curiosity i decide to fill the AST (which i know you shouldn\'t do) just to see if water is being passed to the radiator as i know that it\'s low. So i start filling the AST but no water passes into the radiator until.... i take the radiator cap off again.

Surely this isn\'t normal as water that has expanded due to heating should be replaced from the expansion bottle via the AST once the car is cooling.  I know that i can\'t keep the cap off cause that is stupid. I can\'t think of any other way of making it fill the radiator without me putting water in it. Then overfilling it in the process enough so that it dumps it out of the expansion bottle.

I recently changed the AST cap but this didn\'t solve anything.

Any ideas?

[karl_tate]

i had a similar problem, was constantly fitting up at the neck.

check the level on the drivers side overflow bottle, top this up if its low. i had an air lock in my system, what you need to do it take the water pipe off at the back of the throttle body, take the cap off the ast and then fill up at the throttle body pipe, you may see bubbles coming up through the ast, if not then just let the ast overflow a little bit and then reconnect the pipe back onto the throttle body. should cure your problem.

[wiggman2030]

Ok cheers i\'ll give that a go

[batman]

ditto fill up at the back near the throttle body i had same issiues do it a few times seem s to work

[wiggman2030]

filled it up today and got some bubbles through the AST, had to put quite a bit in but got there in the end. Hope it sorts itself out now

[FDAsh]

Sounds like an air lock as said, if there\'s no white smoke on startup then I doubt you\'ve lost a water seal or cracked a plate as I did. :Thumbs-up

[Grizzly]

Do you have an Alloy ast? we had all sorts of problems with them a bit back not sealing properly.

Believe it of not Jubilee clips as well, if one has been over tightened in its past it may leak but as i found out only when there is pressure in the system (when its hot) the one that caused me headaches was the rad hose on the bottom of the Water pump.

[wiggman2030]

I\'ve still got the stock AST but will check the jubilee clips lol

thanks