No Crust Racing

Working on the car at the moment, just stopping for lunch and waiting for it to cool down. Emptied out the radiator and ran the engine with clean water flowing in while watching the water flowing out. Plugged it up and put a bottle of radiator flush in it, filled it up and let it idle for a good 25mins. Towards the end it started frothing up as shown. I'm assuming this occurs as the radiator flush does its work. Once it's cooled I'll flush it again then put new coolant in it, no doubt it'll take a while to bleed out the air but at least once I'm done the coolant should be clean enough for me to TK test it if needed.

Lol nah I work in an industry where it can take ages to solve an issue so I'm pretty patient. Yeah still has heater in it.

No luck today, tightened a few more things but there still seems to be a very slow leak. I can no longer see any coolant leaking (exception being a very tiny weep from one turbo line when the car is warmed up), just the gauge dropping slowly. I also still got the gurgle after driving it.

I should add that one leak is right where I hear the gurgle and is quite high in the system.

Found some more leaks this morning, working on fixing those.

Long time without an update...

Ahh, OK. Yeah I've got a rough idea on what needs to be done so I'll test out all the theories when I dump the coolant this weekend to remove the stuff that was oil contaminated from the HG failure.

No offense taken mate, all advice is always welcome. This is a CA18 so there is no bleed screw as was mentioned earlier which is what makes this system one of the trickier ones. I'll keep at it and report back how I go. My main concern is that the head is sealing properly.

Yeah I've read through that before when I had my 33s, This is a CA S13, so no bleed screw but I've pretty much done all the other steps. I might look into a radiator cap for cheap insurance. I'll know more this weekend when I've had some time to fiddle.

It is, just doesn't feel as hard to me.

After looking at the pic I posted again in more detail you are right, the PSI is on the outside of the measurement ring, which shows 15-20-25 etc against it.

I'll re-check the tester then maybe it;s not psi and in fact something else. It's definitely 100 somethings. At 100 (whatever the unit is if its not psi) the radiator hoses are almost rock hard to touch, they were not anywhere near that hard after driving it and keeping the cap on while it was hot and pressurised.

Clutch fan seems to be working fine, car doesn't get hot on the factory or after market gauge. It's certainly spinning as expected and I have the shroud in place. Just get that noise and I thought it may have been using coolant but as I fixed 3 different leaks it's entirely possible that was why. 100psi on the gauge has test next to it, I went 140 after fixing leaks and could hear/see nothing else leaking. If I let the car idle long enough with the cap removed the coolant level rises to a point where it would start over flowing if I left the cap off which is why I don;'t want to follow a suggestion I was given of driving it with the cap off. I've jacked it way up twice and let it idle for 15-20mins each time, my jack goes 498mm. I'll get under it and triple check the coolant hoses up under the manifold. This weekend I should be able to drain everything, flush out the old coolant and put fresh stuff in so I can TK test it without the old stuff in there.

Agreed Jeff, but look at the most recent update. Drove it last night after fixing some leaks and it gurgled without the rad cap being removed. There definitely could be more leaks, so I will do some more testing. The big ticket for me was that I could not hear anything in/around the head area or where it was been gurgling. I will flush it all out and get a TK tester on to it, I can deal with it getting some air in or leaking a tiny bit somewhere but I don;t want to put it on the dyno if the head gasket is not sealing.

"Looks" good, but was on the car when I bought it.

Forgot to add, it didn't make any noises in or around that area while I was pressure testing it. Maybe I should pull the spark plug on 3 and 4 (where the HG was blown last time) and see if I can see/hear anything at the same time. I'll try and line up a TK tester, but I have to fully flush the cooling system first as this older coolant would still have some oil in it from when the HG went.

I did some more work on it last night with a radiator tester a mate had. Fouund 3 leaks at 100psi test pressure. - Top radiator hose which required 2 hoses clamps before I could not hear the air escaping any more. - Water temp sender adapter which I was able to seal up with a new/better hose clamp. - 2 lines under the intake manifold next to each other that I'd not tightened up properly. I made sure they didn't leak up to 140psi on the gauge then let it idle jacked right up for 10 mins before taking it for a belt. When I got back, the car still gurgled at me, but I got it on video this time. There's a noise halfway through the clip, that's the missus banging around outside the garage water plants.

It'd have to be some pretty serious tyre wear Lach, I rang two different places yesterday and both said it was bollocks. I got a call back from the Toyota dealership about it around lunch time, as it turns out, they performed 2 recalls on the car and guess what the second one involved, removing the steering shaft... The manager also mentioned that the guy out the front should not be dispensing mechanical information as he's not trained and that the guys out the back were "misinformed" as the tyre wear should not be an issue. Anyway, it's straight now.

Haha, not panicked, it's just a track car so it can sit for however long to get fixed. Just don't want to hit the dyno and dial in the new parts if the gasket is not right. Natrad guy, who was very friendly and helpful, told me pressure test will not help and suggested I'd be better off fully flushing the car then TK testing it, I have access to a TK tester. I'll keep running/driving the car also, if the level keeps dropping then it's going somewhere, if it's just air escaping then it should level out at some point,.

It would probably be the top hose which connects to the thermostat housing, that or the radiator cap. As I mentioned though, I went through that process and my main concern is the drop in coolant level implying it's leaking out or into the engine.

- Coolant is a mix of the old coolant, that was slightly oil contaminated from the headgasket, and fresh water that was put in the radiator to get the car going. I have some radiator cleaner and plans to flush/clean, haven't done it yet while I'm wanting to work out if it's sealed properly. - CAs dont have a bleed screw, which is why I jacked the car right up so the radiator was the highest point and ran it for twenty mins or so squeezing pipes as I went, air did come out but who knows if it was all of it. - Radiator is pretty new/in decent condition. - Thermostat is only 2000ks old and is a high flow unit, it's working properly as the coolant flows as it should when warm. - The noises come from the back of the engine and I'm semi thinking that the coolant level dropped by some of that came out the cap when I removed it. - I have an aftermarket gauge and it doesn't go above 77 or so degrees. I will make some calls at lunch and see what a pressure test costs, I really need to be sure it's sealed.

Recently replaced the head gasket, head was skimmed, new factory gasket with hylomar (CA18DET). After driving the car and getting it hot I found it was "gurgling/making a boiling noise from the back of the head more on the intake side. I jacked the car up and let it run for twenty mins or so and kept squeezing hoses as I assumed it may have air in the lines. It pushed air into the overflow for a while then stopped doing it. Last night I drove it again after a good warm up and when I came back it wasn't gurgling straight up but started to when I cracked the radiator cap (which also released some fluid into the rag I had there). It had stopped before I grabbed my camera, but I did record the sound of fluid swishing around coming from the same place each time I squeezed the top radiator hose. I'm inclined to think the radiator level has dropped, but how much of that was fluid out the cap is unknown. When I was trying to get the air out, I had the heater on full pelt also and gave the car plenty of revs as well. My main concern is the headgasket is not sealing. Is the easiest way to check to get a pressure test done? There does not appear to be any oil in the coolant, as there was last time, but the gurgling makes me think that when I shut the car off it's sucking air in somewhere from a leak in the cooling system.

I'm inclined to agree. I'll look around for other options. The problem being, the car is a Prius so "some" knowledge is required to look after it properly. Example, the dealer pro-actively replaced the water pump (not sure if it was the engine water pump or the water pump fir the inverter) under recall. A non Toyota dealer probably would not have known it was required. I'll be emailing them this morning to detail my experience there as the feedback, if taken correctly, should be useful to them.

Yeah dealer. Duncan the car drove straight, no pulling just crooked steering wheel.

Agreed, when I picked it up the wheel was straight again. He maintained that it wasn't dead on but that was the tyres... I showed him the pic I took of it off centre and asked if they had replaced the tyres to get it straighter, which of course they hadn't...