losing coolant

[Sailor]

The HG went on the Accord. The first symptom was losing water, but there was no emulsion in the oil. However, the gasket did allow a swap between coolant and exhaust gas. You could occasionally smell fumes in the overflow bottle but there was no sign of steam in the exhaust.

[mercutio]

yeah take it to a garage and have a sniff test done that will remove all doubt

[elton75]

think it's the seal in the rad cap it's all cracked i'll replace it theres no mayonnaise in the filler cap

[Merlin]

Are you sure you are not over filling the expansion bottle? If you over fill it the system will try to purge the excess, this could be mistaken for coolant going missing.

On the expansion bottle there is min/max levels that are only visible when removing the bottle. Lude expansion bottle on the left:

[wurlycorner]

think it's the seal in the rad cap it's all cracked

Well that is definitely not good then, yep, but on the other hand no mayo on the oil filler cap is positive.

Have you seen anywhere that it's leaking or damp at all?

A favourite leak location is the small heater hose just underneath the distributor (side of the cylinder head, above the gearbox). Oil leaks from the cam or distributor seals cause the rubber heater hose to soften and then it starts leaking. Very common.

Alternatively, do the side and rear windows in the car steam up badly when you have the heater on on a long journey? Or does the heater smell 'sweet' when it's running? (they're both tell-tales of a leaky heater matrix, but that's very very uncommon on ludes).

[elton75]

i did over fill it once then found out about the min max lines havn't found any leaks will have a proper look tomorrow