Corsa D oil pressure

[Misterg]

found a hairline crack in the rad, next to the top hose spigot where it had been leaking.
New rad bought and fitted. All looks OK warming up, no leaks

Leak found and fixed

unplugged it. [...]
Plugged it back in [...]
all now seems absolutely normal.

Bad connection on temperature sensor found and fixed?

The only thing I can think of now is something stopping the coolant flow

Other than double checking the condition of the wiring around the temperature sensor, do you still have a problem?

 

[jmp49]

This is doing my head in.

I thought I was onto something - found a hairline crack in the rad, next to the top hose spigot where it had been leaking.
New rad bought and fitted. All looks OK warming up, no leaks, so take it for a run while logging live data on my phone, 17 miles to the nearest town and back. Stopped for a few minutes to have a look at the fluid level, then head home. No leaks that I can see, all looks good.
It was when I pulled back onto the road it all went bananas. Temperature spikes to 120+, warning light comes on, then after less than a minute it all goes down again and behaves sort of normally for the rest of the trip.
Pull into the driveway and leave it idling, temperature was > 110 and still creeping up and the occasional bubble coming up through the tank, even with the fan on full chat. I shut it off at that point.

I had a look at the log. Seems OK on the open road, it starts to struggle at low speeds and when stopped. All seemed to point to a lack of airflow through the rad.
View attachment 495909
Pulled the bumper off again and had a closer look at the aircon condenser, which didn't work when we bought it. Sure enough, all coroded and clogged with dead bugs etc.
A quick test of the pressure ports showed the system was empty, so I just removed it. Reassembled everything and went out again, on the exact same route.

It looked better at first, but then started shooting up to 120+ again, seemingly at random.
Back home, temperature still creeping up, tried turning the heater on full. Temperature still creeping up.
I wasn't sure if the temp sensor was telling me porkies at this point, it doesn't seem physically possible for the block temperature to change that fast, so unplugged it. Went off the bottom of the scale as expected.
Plugged it back in, by now the temperature was heading way down below normal, fan still on full chat as disconnecting the sensor probably put it in fault mode.
Stopped and restarted, left it idling while the fan cycled on and off a couple of times, all now seems absolutely normal.

View attachment 495910

The only thing I can think of now is something stopping the coolant flow -
Pump impeller loose on the shaft? Pump looks brand new but who knows where it came from? Fitting another new one looks like it involves a fair amount of dismantling.
Lump of Radweld that randomly gets lodged against the pump outlet?

Mrs and the little'un are now on the point of chucking in the towel and buying something else. Unless anyone can think of something easy I've missed?

Astra hits 120c then the ecu opens the stat, the sensor is on the engine side. Once the stat is opened, the rad gets hot, then it stabilizes, eventually after stop start heat soak, the fans come on, first the first stage, then if that cant cope the second stage kicks in and sounds like a jet aircraft but the temperature always comes back down with one of these methods, but it never has a warning light when its doing it. Its worst when its not got airflow into the rad, or you pull in after a quicker run but its all still heat soaked.
Yeah if the ecu doesnt know the temperature reading, it runs the fans flat out for safety.

I think its a fine balancing act and intentionally runs always on the razor edge of nearly boiling over even when running properly if that helps at all. His has been bipping round at speed since getting it right and still does the above but without using coolant.
He's running a android/carplay head unit and has torque running on it with a usb obd2 link becaues after the initial disaster with the warped block he finds it reassuring to have a actual realtime temperature gauge, I could ask him if he could datalog the coolant temperatures over a few days if you want?

You think this is moronic, daughters 207 has a temperature gauge on the cluster, but its programmed to never exceed 90 so the driver doesnt get alarmed. I was watching live data with it hovering at 115c as its got active cooling system too and the gauge reading 90 so I thought it was broke, but read up, and no, thats by design because modern car makers reckon people cant be trusted with knowing actual data.

 

[Red'n'Black]

Leak found and fixed



Bad connection on temperature sensor found and fixed?



Other than double checking the condition of the wiring around the temperature sensor, do you still have a problem?

Yes, coolant has always dropped after a run where the temperature spiked. Now the leaks are all fixed the cap is doing its job and venting the overpressure. I'm pretty sure this is what broke the original rad in the first place.

The last item I haven't checked is the water pump, engine mount and a bunch of other stuff have to come off to get at it but that's next on the list.

 

[Red'n'Black]

Astra hits 120c then the ecu opens the stat, the sensor is on the engine side. Once the stat is opened, the rad gets hot, then it stabilizes, eventually after stop start heat soak, the fans come on, first the first stage, then if that cant cope the second stage kicks in and sounds like a jet aircraft but the temperature always comes back down with one of these methods, but it never has a warning light when its doing it. Its worst when its not got airflow into the rad, or you pull in after a quicker run but its all still heat soaked.
Yeah if the ecu doesnt know the temperature reading, it runs the fans flat out for safety.

I think its a fine balancing act and intentionally runs always on the razor edge of nearly boiling over even when running properly if that helps at all. His has been bipping round at speed since getting it right and still does the above but without using coolant.
He's running a android/carplay head unit and has torque running on it with a usb obd2 link becaues after the initial disaster with the warped block he finds it reassuring to have a actual realtime temperature gauge, I could ask him if he could datalog the coolant temperatures over a few days if you want?

You think this is moronic, daughters 207 has a temperature gauge on the cluster, but its programmed to never exceed 90 so the driver doesnt get alarmed. I was watching live data with it hovering at 115c as its got active cooling system too and the gauge reading 90 so I thought it was broke, but read up, and no, thats by design because modern car makers reckon people cant be trusted with knowing actual data.

Yes if it's no trouble, a log off a working one would be useful, thanks.

I think ours must be slightly different because there's no ECU control of the stat that I can see, it's just a wax capsule.

Yes a lot of gauges on recent stuff seem to tell porkies. This is progress, so I'm told...

 

[dobbslc]

I had overheating problems on a 2.2 Frontera engine, I changed a lot of things but it still did it, I gave up and sold it to some Romanian blocks that were going to drive it home the next day
I think the head gasket had gone.
Another one, my Surf was losing coolant when I got it so I did the sniff test and it came out clear, I tried everything else then took the head off.

All four cylinders the same but it ran perfectly and never overheated.

 

[Smallfry]

I had overheating problems on a 2.2 Frontera engine, I changed a lot of things but it still did it, I gave up and sold it to some Romanian blocks that were going to drive it home the next day
I think the head gasket had gone.
Another one, my Surf was losing coolant when I got it so I did the sniff test and it came out clear, I tried everything else then took the head off.
View attachment 496187
All four cylinders the same but it ran perfectly and never overheated.

Yes, but thats a Toyota !

I have had several Astras, all F, G, and H, and my Combo C van, that I have had for 20 years, but all with Isuzu diesel engines.

What I have learned is, never, EVER use Radweld or similar. Earlier ones suffered from oil cooler internal leaks, so would mix oil with the coolant, but would pressurise the system and lose coolant. In my naivety, I used Radweld on two cars, and it blocked the heater matrix and some of the radiator.

I used Sentinel X800 central heating cleaner to clean the systems.

The header tank caps do need doing up tight. Nip them up, then a little bit more. They will either ruin the seal, or crack. Also, non genuine header tanks sometimes have "casting" flash on the cap sealing face, which causes a slow leak.

Your latest "problem" was probably an airlock.

 

[dobbslc]

What problem? The head was changed 11 years ago with an AMC one.
The Surf for all it's bullet proof reputation does have a weak head design on the earlier 3.0 that later engines had upgraded.
Yes it is hard to bleed the cooling system sometimes but once you know that it's ok to 'burp' them for a couple of days then all should be well.
No offence but I wouldn't buy another Vauxhall after many many problems with a Zafira and the new company van not being much better with very poor after sales service.
Anyway I hope you find the problem with your car but don't dismiss the chance that it could be the head or head gasket.

 

[jmp49]

Finally got a datalog to save and send you a dm with it. His engine coolant is hitting 111c in places but calms back down to a steady 105-107c for most of the log which covers his 50 minute drive home via mostly b roads (d roads here). But it casually runs at 100+c when its operating normally. He disabled logging the speed for some reason...
It went in for its ethanol conversion health check last week and passed all their tests, so everything seems to be in order finally.

 

[pedrobedro]

Ok, attempt #2. Adaptor re-made with a proper sealing face.

There's no temperature gauge in these, so I kept an eye on it with an OBD reader. Peaked at 115C before the radiator fan kicked in, I read this engine is designed to run quite hot?

Hot pressure at idle was 2.2 bar, rising to 5 at 3000 rpm. Seems a lot more reasonable.

Another clue that the switch was toast was the dribble of oil that came out the back of the connector.

New switch fitted and light stays out, I think I can stop fussing about this one now.

Which brings us to the next thing, it's losing coolant at a rate of a header tankful in 50 miles. No obvious leaks that I can see. None of this showed up on the test drive, obvs.

Test kit ordered for combustion gas in coolant. Watch this space...

My daughter had a couple of Corsas and they both developed leaks on the front corner of the head and had to be skimmed to cure it.. Both ran fine but lost coolant then ran hot when it got low.

 

[Red'n'Black]

I've come to the end of the road with this one I think.

Pulled the water pump off, no sign of the impeller being loose (which I was suspecting) even after pouring boiling water over it. But there is a coolant leak into the oil somewhere, inside of the cam cover is now plastered in a thick layer of white emulsion. And the timing cover gasket looks to have swelled out into the water passages and started coming to bits:



Pulling the cover, chain, guides etc off and replacing everything is a much bigger job than I have time for at the moment, and I'm not at all sure that would be the end of the story. So in the meantime I've bought a 1.0 Yaris, she needs something reliable for work and college. No issues with that so far thankfully.

So I'm going to put it all back together and stick it on eBay for spares or repair. A bit of an expensive lesson, but you can't win 'em all.

 

[dobbslc]

1.0 Yaris

Good little engines in those cars, my boy had one in his Aygo and run it out of oil (right out of oil!) clatter clatter all the way to work
Topped it up and it did another 10k or more over the next 18 months!

 

[Nomad]

Would anyone have any suggestions for a Corsa C van (1.7 Di) that is blowing water out of the header tank?

I’ve been looking but can’t find a workshop manual or any info about head torques etc.
On any other car I’d assume headgasket but have been told these can fail synthetic oil/water intercooler. Comments??



Thanks

 

[Red'n'Black]

Would anyone have any suggestions for a Corsa C van (1.7 Di) that is blowing water out of the header tank?

I’ve been looking but can’t find a workshop manual or any info about head torques etc.
On any other car I’d assume headgasket but have been told these can fail synthetic oil/water intercooler. Comments??

View attachment 497712

Thanks

Does it do it from a cold start, or only when hot?

A combustion gas in coolant test would be my first port of call before pulling anything apart, I got a test kit for a tenner on eBay.

 

[jmp49]

Some of the ecotec's have a water cooled oil cooler, which are notorious for failing internally and causing a water leak between oil and water systems, but I thought it was the 1.6 gtc turbo lumps in the petrol series so didnt mention it, but no experience of working on diesel ecotecs to know if they were cursed likewise.
On the original sump I removed from sons 1.6 n/a ecotec, there's a blank unpopulated mount on the front of the sump, which I believe is for the oil cooler when fitted.
I'm nearly there on daughters 207 but I'm just too stubborn and stupid it seems, put everything back together and everything motorwise is lovely, goes like stink, but now making a rattle noise from the gearbox/drivetrain, which I think is probably the crappy input shaft bearing with a plastic cage having failed.
They're only 20 quid for a upgraded one with real seals, but its a front suspension/subframe/gearbox out to change. Think I might find a old s/h transmission and rebuild it and just hot swap it in...

 

[Nomad]

Does it do it from a cold start, or only when hot?

A combustion gas in coolant test would be my first port of call before pulling anything apart, I got a test kit for a tenner on eBay.

Seems to happen within seconds of startup, hot or cold...

Looks like I'm going shopping for a test kit / sniff tester

 

[m_c]

Seems to happen within seconds of startup, hot or cold...

Looks like I'm going shopping for a test kit / sniff tester

If it's pressurising that quick, then it's likely something fairly major.
That's the 1.7 Isuzu engine, which was a fairly good engine, but I have seen a couple that destroyed cylinder heads, but that was on the later CDTI version.