Two days ago my header tank warning light took ages to go off, I didn’t think anything about it because I was in a hurry. Yesterday, the light wouldn’t go off at all so I turned off the engine and had a look, (good job I fitted the updated header tank and cap last year as I have the later dash with the small rad warning light).
Horror of horrors, water level right down, about 2cm left in the header tank, must be HGF, the car has done 58K Km. I did the usual, checked the oil – nice and black – hmm good job I ordered new oil over the Christmas period. Very, very slight oily film on the top of the header tank water (well, not really a film), but it looked the same as it did in my old TF.
My neighbour watched me sniffing the header tank and thought I’d found a new way of ingesting herbs, but nothing concrete came to my mind, so what happened?
I pondered this for a while – as you do at my age – and then it came to me. Last week at some time, I was being a boy racer, and suddenly there was this brief but unmistakable smell of escaping steam (you know the smell) – no sound, just the smell. It didn’t last, and I was too busy driving fast to give it another thought except “oh, the heater valve has opened”, a stupid thought because the heater was on anyway.
I am guessing / hoping that the cap vented for some reason – failed, or whatever, so I topped up the coolant and put on the cap from the old tank nice and tight. Yes, I ordered a new cap “MG original” in the MG plastic bag which should be with me sometime next week.
Took her out for a spin today and the water level hasn’t gone down, so I’m crossing my fingers that the cap was the problem.
But of course it could be the start of HGF, under-car cooling pipes, radiator, a split hose somewhere, heater matrix, inlet manifold, water pump, to name just a few, time will tell.
Horror of horrors, water level right down, about 2cm left in the header tank, must be HGF, the car has done 58K Km. I did the usual, checked the oil – nice and black – hmm good job I ordered new oil over the Christmas period. Very, very slight oily film on the top of the header tank water (well, not really a film), but it looked the same as it did in my old TF.
My neighbour watched me sniffing the header tank and thought I’d found a new way of ingesting herbs, but nothing concrete came to my mind, so what happened?
I pondered this for a while – as you do at my age – and then it came to me. Last week at some time, I was being a boy racer, and suddenly there was this brief but unmistakable smell of escaping steam (you know the smell) – no sound, just the smell. It didn’t last, and I was too busy driving fast to give it another thought except “oh, the heater valve has opened”, a stupid thought because the heater was on anyway.
I am guessing / hoping that the cap vented for some reason – failed, or whatever, so I topped up the coolant and put on the cap from the old tank nice and tight. Yes, I ordered a new cap “MG original” in the MG plastic bag which should be with me sometime next week.
Took her out for a spin today and the water level hasn’t gone down, so I’m crossing my fingers that the cap was the problem.
But of course it could be the start of HGF, under-car cooling pipes, radiator, a split hose somewhere, heater matrix, inlet manifold, water pump, to name just a few, time will tell.