Online tool rental? - cooling system issue

[Milkboot]

been calling a few places around town [Houston, TX] and no one has either a "european" radaitor pressure testing tool, or have a universal kit that has the BMW adapter :( If anyone knows of some auto part rental places online i would share my jelly belly jelly beans with you :D or if you have one, i would gladly put down a deposit of sorts and rent it from you,even pay shipping both ways.

I just need to get my lil baby up and running before i have to borrow moms jeep and wake up at 6:30 every morning to take her to work while i work this problem out :P


Last week i noticed while sitting idle in a parking lot that all of a sudden my temp started to climb really fast, i shut down the engine, poped the hood and thankfully there was a good strong breeze to help things cool down a little faster, tried to limp home but it didnt happen and had to tow her to the house :( since it as at night i didnt have a clear view in seeing where it was leaking :( lost about 3/4 of the fluid in the resavoir, atleast what i noticed what was left from leaking out overnight.

[Milkboot]

Oh yeah, one weird thing is, after the breif overheating :( *kicks self* yes it got near the red, find a lighted parking lot was a pain in the ass :( :(

I noticed my engine has never run more quiet in its time with me, very very weird, i also use to have a problem of the clutch on the AC compresser making noise while engaged and now it purrs like a kitten with no noise. so now that somthing seems to be working right, i am really worried about how much damage i did! *falls over*

Any other spiffy ways to test the system besides turning it on and looking for a leak? (looking at you winfred ;))

[Ferret]

I noticed my engine has never run more quiet in its time with me, very very weird, i also use to have a problem of the clutch on the AC compresser making noise while engaged and now it purrs like a kitten with no noise. so now that somthing seems to be working right, i am really worried about how much damage i did! *falls over*

This sounds like a HG water-->cylender failure.

Do not run the car until:

a) You've determined it's not an HG fail.
b) You've changed the HG.

Doing so puts your engines head at an extreme risk of cracking....

Firstly pull all your sparkplugs and see if you've got one that looks steam cleaned, if so :

Pressurise the system, and keep it pressurised for a few hours - refilling the coolant as it's disappearing. These almost always start piddling water into your cylender bores - pull the plugs and kick it over on the starter - you'll know which cylender it is when it ejects water out of the bores.

[Milkboot]

Some what of a good sign if i saw coolent leaking from around the front bumper clip?

Once this burning hell of a sun starts to cool off here I am going to check the plugs

[Ferret]

Some what of a good sign if i saw coolent leaking from around the front bumper clip?

Ahh, if you've got a coolant leak then you might be alright, but didnt it fire a coolant low warning from the OBC before it overheated? They've usually got enough coolant right down to that point to keep running happily?

[Milkboot]

Well When i frist got the car last year, I had to top off the coolent maybe every 3-4 months? I did not see a coolent level message go on because i am always flipping through my OBC to look at the time heh, and it got my attention when it said coolent temp :S

[winfred]

possible it still has the plastic water pump and it's spinning, they are getting rare but i see you have under 100k miles and could still be on its original, thermostat crapped out, weak fan clutch, blown aux fan resistor, some combo of a couple of those 4 things could be the culprit, the pisser in a m50 radiator almost never clogs or id suggest that, with the system full and the cap off you should see it squirt at a 1500 odd rpm rev, no squirt means it's either air locked and not flowing or not full, drill a couple mm hole in the new thermostat if you change it where the arrow is and position it at 12:00, this makes it a snap to bleed and the system runs a little better as it burps itself and circulates coolant better

[BMWCCA1]

Sears has a pressure tester, at least on-line (http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?BV_SessionID=@@@@1286191002.1187572616@ @@@&BV_EngineID=cckladdlkijgmmkcefecemldffidflk.0&vertical=SEARS&sid=I0093600120004000085&pid=00946342000), that appears to have most of the common European adapters:

(sorry, the photo doesn't appear but here's the link to the picture or use the link above: "on-line")

http://s7.sears.com/is/image/Sears/00946342000?hei=250&wid=250&qlt=90,0&resMode=sharp&op_usm=0.9,0.5,0,0&op_sharpen=1

[Milkboot]

Awesome, you the man this gives me a great list of things to look at now :)

[Milkboot]

Awesome, not as cheap as renting, but it sure is a hell of alot cheaper then others i saw online :) thanks!

[Milkboot]

Did check the plugs, and as far as i could tell they didnt seem "steam cleaned" they just looked like graphite gray in color, no build up or anything.


Next thing i need to do is get my multi-meter from work to check the AUX fan and see if its just that. Im hoping it was just that, and the tiny pin hole leak i use to top off with was just low and warning light didnt come on, so fan not working is what made it overheat :( was enough air in the system at one point for it to cause so much pressure that fluid was leaking from around the cap :S

[Bin_jammin]

Seriously?

The first thing you need to take care of is the coolant leak. If you've been adding some ever 3-4 whatever, that's the sign you're leaking it. If you can't find the leak, take it to a competent mechanic to find it for you. Air isn't going to give you more pressure, what coolant does is remove the heat from the engine, and transfer it via the radiator to the surrounding air. If you have no coolant, the engine has no medium with which to transfer heat, thus causing your engine to run hotter, and you leak more, and it runs hotter... on and on until you have less coolant than the car needs in order to keep itself from munching a head gasket and you're looking at big work and big bills.



To cap it off, fix the coolant leak first, you should have done that when you noticed you were losing some. If you're neglecting a coolant leak, what other maintenance are you neglecting? Regular oil changes and gas the only thing the car gets?

Fix leak. Do a compression test, see if you've popped the HG. Report back for more advice.