Rad failed, engine not cooked, rad recommendation please

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by griston64

After seeing what happened to the old one I'd be tempted by one of these

https://www.do88.co.uk/product_info....060290232f4366

No connection to me I just like new shiny things

'ow much??? £OUCH-MUCH that's 'ow much!

Were you a magpie in a former life Mark?

Nice rad but bit on the pricey side and they don't even list my chariot in their Volvo rads!

[Laney760]

To be fair, the rad was the original one, 23 years old, it didn't do badly!

[volvo always]

In my 940 and 240 that I sold I fitted nissens rads in both. 240 as auto gearbox pipe holed and garage couldn't undo the gearbox cooler pipes from old rad so fitted new rad.

1996 940 LPT as when bought cheap split on top hose stub. All been a good buy and no issues and fit perfetly. Both automatic versions.

Hope you get it sorted soon.

James.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Laney760

To be fair, the rad was the original one, 23 years old, it didn't do badly!

Good points, i had to replace the rad in my 1994 827 last year (with separate ATF cooler as i couldn't find an auto one for love or money, not that it bothered me as i prefer the separate ATF cooler) so 23-24 years seems to be a good life.
I know the one on my 760 (31 this year) has been replaced, oddly by the same people who supplied my Rover rad and is beginning to look a bit thin in places now.
It's not leaking or overheating (even with no vicious fan on there) but something i need to keep an eye on from time to time.

[Laney760]

The car is in the garage, they are going to start on it on Wednesday. As it started up after the event and sounded all ok for the minute it took to park it and there was no blips in the tickover I'm really hopeful that I don't need a hg but if I do then I will spend the money on the car. I've put quite a lot into it this last 12 months, age related issues rearing their head but it's worth it

Thanks for all the replies

[Laney760]

I rang the garage yesterday afternoon to say please fit a Nissan rad and they had already ordered a Nissan rad. They are expecting it today and after fitting they will test hg. Fingers crossed but I'm not hopeful, also worried about the alloy head, that must have been affected by such overheating I guess.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Laney760

I rang the garage yesterday afternoon to say please fit a Nissan rad and they had already ordered a Nissan rad. They are expecting it today and after fitting they will test hg. Fingers crossed but I'm not hopeful, also worried about the alloy head, that must have been affected by such overheating I guess.

You're right to be worried about the head Laney (really sorry, i've forgotten your name) and/or HG, if you caught it fairly quickly before the temperature had been up there for a prolonged period then you may well have got away with it. Time will tell but fingers crossed for you!

As long as when they're happy it's not leaking from anywhere with water, they put ethylene glycol (the blue stuff) in instead of OAT (red horrible stuff) antifreeze then you shouldn't have any trouble on that score but antifreeze does have a habit of finding any leaks.

The red OAT stuff was developed by the Japanese in the late 90s for use in all-aluminium engines as the blue stuff can attack aluminium alloy. However, the red stuff (Organic Acid Technology) attacks cast iron more aggressively than the blue stuff attacks alloy and also tends to eat gaskets on pre-2000 cars due to the acid in it.

Also if the red and blue mix, they form a gel which blocks radiators and other coolant passageways.

On a lighter note to finish with, if they have to skim the head if the HG has gone, you'll get a bit more compression - nothing to worry about as you run on LPG which has a higher octane rating than petrol so will actually boost performance and/or economy.

[Laney760]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

You're right to be worried about the head Laney (really sorry, i've forgotten your name) and/or HG, if you caught it fairly quickly before the temperature had been up there for a prolonged period then you may well have got away with it. Time will tell but fingers crossed for you!

As long as when they're happy it's not leaking from anywhere with water, they put ethylene glycol (the blue stuff) in instead of OAT (red horrible stuff) antifreeze then you shouldn't have any trouble on that score but antifreeze does have a habit of finding any leaks.

The red OAT stuff was developed by the Japanese in the late 90s for use in all-aluminium engines as the blue stuff can attack aluminium alloy. However, the red stuff (Organic Acid Technology) attacks cast iron more aggressively than the blue stuff attacks alloy and also tends to eat gaskets on pre-2000 cars due to the acid in it.

Also if the red and blue mix, they form a gel which blocks radiators and other coolant passageways.

On a lighter note to finish with, if they have to skim the head if the HG has gone, you'll get a bit more compression - nothing to worry about as you run on LPG which has a higher octane rating than petrol so will actually boost performance and/or economy.

Hi Dave

I use K2 green antifreeze in mine, cheaper than the recommended Volvo green antifreeze. 5 litres concentrate for under £20 on Ebay

No word from the garage yet

I fully expect head and hg damage, I don't know how long she'd been so hot, I wouldn't have heard the fan as I had the music on

I was asking above how many hours labour do people think it will need for a head skim and replacement hg but somebody misunderstood me and thought I'd asked how many hours to fit the rad. I could no doubt fit the rad myself but no way could I do the other work!

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Laney760

Hi Dave

I use K2 green antifreeze in mine, cheaper than the recommended Volvo green antifreeze. 5 litres concentrate for under £20 on Ebay

No word from the garage yet

I fully expect head and hg damage, I don't know how long she'd been so hot, I wouldn't have heard the fan as I had the music on

I was asking above how many hours labour do people think it will need for a head skim and replacement hg but somebody misunderstood me and thought I'd asked how many hours to fit the rad. I could no doubt fit the rad myself but no way could I do the other work!

Ah, i see - i hadn't realised forst nor last you were asking for labour estimates, just a recommendation for the radiator.

If the HG has gone i'd estimate somewhere in the region of 3-6 hours, depending on whether they find anything else as they do it (turbo coolant pipes furred up for example, quite common on the 940 i believe) and how familiar they are with your LPG system and what bits they can disconnect, which they should leave alone and so on.
Only when the head is off will it be possible to see if it needs a skim or not, it would be a wise precaution if the HG has gone.
Then there's the question of whether the machine shop doing the skimming will accept the head with the valves in and either work round them or remove them before they skim it and replace after. It may be that the garage removes the valves first and (hopefully) laps them in on replacement.

To be honest, it's a bit tricky to give a reliable estimate because there are still too many variables. Once we know more, i and others can give you a better idea but by then the garage should have given you an estimate of time needed and/or cost.

I'd only ever heaard of K2 in passing before now so looked it up - it's basically ethylene glycol so you're absolutely fine with that - i forgot to mention some version of EG antifreeze are green!

Fingers crossed it's only the rad, the lack of noise from the garage suiggests preliminary testing has gone well and they're leaving it overnight to see if the level drops, if it's only a little then they've probably sorted it, if it's a lot one or more cylinders might be waterlogged necessitating the HG to be done and probably a skim as well.
Even if you didn't hear the boiling up because of your music, i would think you'd see the steam coming from under the bonnet. With that in mind, i'd guess it was a sudden failure at or just before you noticed the temp gauge reaching for the sky!

[Jimsiss]

I’ve done headgaskets on many cars but only had to have a head skimmed once (due to damage to the face and slight warping). My brother had it skimmed at the garage he worked for at the time and left the valves in it, valves were meant to be just under the surface of the head but one was slightly out of spec and received a very light skim. It didn’t do it any harm as they were flat valves anyway so had plenty of thickness to them. The Volvo head should have a slight chamber in the head so taking the valves out wouldn’t be an issue but ideally they’ll replace the valve stem oil seals and lapping the valves anyway so the valves coming out would be advantageous.

My dad and brother did the headgasket on my Volvo a few years before I got it from my parents, I don’t remember it taking too long but getting all the valve seals replaced and valves lapped in adds to the time.

Dave has given a very accurate reply above. If the garage is experienced then it shouldn’t take them too long to strip the head off but if they have to send it out for skimming then it’ll add a lot more time to the rebuild. Unfortunately the best you can do for prices is ask them for an estimate for the job as they will know the rebuild costs. I’m spoilt with my brother having lots of contacts so I get cheap head skims and to borrow tools if needed, he now works in a car parts store so I also get heavily discounted parts.

My parents Skoda Fabia has an oil pressure operated chain tensioner on the engine and that died causing it to have valve to piston contact, that was over £1400 to have fixed so having a head skimmed and gasket replaced should be nowhere near that.