Afternoon folks.

Well, it seems I have a rather odd coolant leak on the 2.0i.
I drove it to a job up the road earlier, which was only about half a mile away. Later, when coming back, I thought I noticed the stop light flickering a few times, but everytime I looked down it was off.
Then there was a beep, and I looked down to see STOP and the coolant level light grinning at me, along with 'Engine water level - Stop immediately' on the dot matrix.
I was just at the end of the street, so I coasted it round to the house.

Upon opening the pressure cap, there was some water left in the bottom of the reservoir. I topped it up and ran the engine again, and was surprised to find the level slowly dropping over the space of a few minutes. I looked around to see if I could find the leak, it soon became very obvious.

Basically, there was a stream of water running down the front of the engine, from somewhere above the oil filter. Upon investigation, it appears to be coming out from behind a solid metal area, where the engine mount / inlet manifold meet the front of the head. I really cannot see anything even remotely coolant related in that area, so have no idea where its escaping from, it just....appears... below the engine mount / manifold.
Now the really odd thing, I was standing watching this steady trickle of water, and noticed that the speed of it increased when I revved the engine, naturally enough. The engine was starting to heat up, and the water running down it was beginning to steam. I revved it quite hard with the throttle cable, the flow of water increased rapidly for a second, then just..... stopped dead.

I looked, and there was still plenty in the reservoir, the leak had just stopped by itself.
Later on, after it cooled down, I started it again, and the leak was back, flowing at a very slow rate. It seems to only occur when the engine is cold.
After all this, Leanne told me that she had noticed a small pool of water under it when she reversed it out one day last week, nice of her to let me know at the time!

Anyway, I'm a bit baffled by this one, has anyone got an idea where it could be coming from? I'm dreading that the manifold / mount will probably have to come off, as I've done my back in (again) and can't even walk properly or stand up straight at the moment, but if it has to be done it has to be done

Any thoughts appreciated

Ciarán

Hi Ciarán,

Presumably yours is equiped with a Bosch Motronic system ? if so, check the connection of the long, small diameter rubber hose that starts just above the thermostat housing on the right side of the engine and ends on the left side of the (Webber) throttle housing, it's a push fit held in place with one of those crappy metal clips beloved of Citroen. This warms up the throttle housing, not too difficult to get at and the manifold can stay in place

Hope your back gets better soon, good luck, Colin.P

Good call Colin. I've had this pipe let go on my car. It gave all the symptoms of a leaking
Head Gasket as the water spraying got drawn into the heater intake and smelled out the
interior getting the windows clammy with anti freeze residue.

The leak sounds like it's on the offside/timing belt end of the engine though. The only pipes
here are the one running back to the lower mini water manifold beside the rear driveshaft
intermediate bearing. I'd have to check it out on mine, isn't there a manifold heating pipe
feed on the inlet at the front middle of the engine at the top?

Andrew

Hi Colin, Andrew.

Cheers for the suggestions.
It is indeed leaking closer to the timing belt side of the engine, rather than the thermostat end.
I didn't realise there was a coolant supply to heat the manifold, whats the purpose of that anyway?

I'll give a good thorough check under the manifold etc tomorrow morning and see if I can turn anything up.

Thanks guys

Cheers

Ciarán

Core plug on it's way out?

Hi Ciaran

My bet is either head gasket failure, cracked block or inlet manifold gasket failure, as the inlet manifold gasket seals waterways in the cylinder head that do not run into your type of inlet manifold, or possibly it could be as has already been mentioned the small coolant pipe has burst that runs from the stat housing to the throttle housing and water from this is running down the manifold in the grooves, to the block and then spilling over and running down the block.
I have seen 3 of these 2l engines now where there is rusty water staining between each cylinder bulge on the front of the block, and although the water was not leaking into the combustion chambers or oil or vise versa it was weeping out nether the less.
Hope its cheap Ciaran

Dean

Hi folks.

Well, I was thinking core plugs too, but there isn't one behind that engine mount as far as I know.
I took the timing belt cover off yesterday just to rule out the water pump etc, dry as a bone in there. I did notice a core plug below the camshaft pulley, which I didn't know about, but it was dry as a bone.

Could well be the head Dean, I hope not, but definite possibility at this point. Its going to the mechanic on Saturday as I'm in no fit state to start pulling it apart unfortunately. Still, at least we'll find out more.

Oddly, though it leaked this morning, and I had to keep topping it up until it warmed up, it didn't this afternoon. Strange one indeed

Watch this space

Ciarán

Hi Ciaran

if it is an intermittent leak it does sound like a rubber pipe flexing and opening up with the heat and thus leaking, it is unlikely especially as there are very few water pipes in that area, but it cant hurt being optimistic .

Good luck

This morning I found you can stop it leaking if you rev it a few times, even when its not that warm.

Weird eh?

Ciarán

Hi Ciaran

On startup I think the coolant circuit is restricted to just the engine. This gives a very fast temperature rise and revving will speed this up.

Regards

XMexc

That makes sense, cheers John

Ciarán

Ciaran,

When I had collant issues with my S1 car, I found it would dump out coolant when cold, either starting or after coolling down or both.

I drove around just topping it up with water when warning light came on for over a month (I had no cash to get it looked at).

Water pump was replaced to fix the leak but indies advised me HG also going. Cooland bubblning when cold. K-Seal has fixed that problem, seems to be holding. Its up to 162 K now (it was about 159K when the cooland issue started).

For years and years before that I was loosing a tiny bit of cooplant, which seemed to end up trapped in the V at the front of the engine. I have not topped it up since Kseal stiopped the bubbling.

It really needs a coolant change but I am a bit reluctant.

Hope this doesnt make the purists among you cringe. I went as far as getting a scrap yard number from the indies back in Jan 2007 but I just couldnt do it. Then I found Club-XM.

hope this helps.

Hi Ciaran

How did this turn out then? is it still alive or was it a cheap fix?

Regards D

Hi guys,

Sorry for the lack of update on this, have had a bad few weeks.
Well, I went down to the mechanics and we initially pressure tested the cooling system. The system held pressure at over 10 bar past its rating, with absolutely no sign of leakage anywhere. We decided to flush it out and try a sealent, which seemed to work, and it certainly stopped the problem for a fortnight. Thinking it cured, I was merrily driving about, and had stopped checking the engine daily for leaks after a week or so.
Things were going well or so I thought, then one morning last week I started it up and got an immediate warning about water level. I checked and found no signs of leakage, so giving it the benefit of the doubt (it had done 500 miles without being filled), I topped it up with antifreeze.
24 hours later, same thing, reservoir almost completely empty again......damn, definite leak. This time when I checked, it was again running out from it's old favourite spot behind the engine mount.
Still not being in any fit state to look at it, back down to the indy it went on Monday. A few nervous moments were had while we waited on everything being stripped and the inlet manifold removed, as I had visions of it being the head. Manifold came off, no sign of any damage or leaks from the gasket, and the waterways leading into it looked fine.
With everything else removed, the only thing left to check at that point was the engine mount, so off it came.
There, the cause was finally revealed. The core plug hidden behind the mount, had a tiny pinhole in it. Even though the engine had been off for well over an hour at this point, and the cooling system opened, the water was still happily spurting out of the centre of this plug in a fine little spray. So, much relief on my part as we were finally sure that it wasn't leaking from under the head.
So Assich's hunch was right!

One replacement plug from a donor 2.1TD later, and things were back to normal. Those things are fairly fiddly to remove / put in BTW, the prospect of it being pushed back too far and just dropping into the block disturbed me a bit, luckily someone with a steadier hand than I pushed it into place!

So its done nearly 200 miles since then and not lost a drop of water, much to my relief.

I did take a lot of pictures documenting the dismantling of the manifold etc, and had intended doing a post on here, but of course my stupid phone didn't save a single one of them!

Many thanks for everyone's help and advice, much appreciated as always!

Ciarán

Hi Ciaran

Thats good news then, a cheap fix! dont see that often!

D