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MG MGF Technical - Missing Coolant?!!!

Hello!

Friend of mine has a 1.8Mpi R reg MGF with around 40K Miles.

A week or so ago the car started overheating so I had a look and the cooland was more or less empty. So, I topped it up and had to keep toppping up for a few days until it seemed to settle. Now, the coolant has gone again but apppears to have changed from blue to the original yellow colour????

When this happened I though a HGF was imminent, but the coolant is not an oily colour - it just sems to dissapear (No sign of a leak).

Any ideas???

Cheers,

Russky
R Goodman

>R reg MGF
Probebly a INlet manifold gasket, if it isn't a HGF.
Or it might be leaky pipes, check carpets, check underbody pipe for signes of leakage.

>apppears to have changed from blue to the original yellow colour
Hnm, the coolant should be yellow, I'm guessing you topped it up with halfords own, rather than the recomended, it is not advised to mix (even if it says you can on the halfords bottle). The 'change' might just be the coolant mixing in the system, this may seem to happen if the engine has not got hot enough to pass water thru the termostat, and then one day it does, sudden change in colour.
Will Munns

i had all the clamps check and or replaced last year together with the Manifold gasket. Coolant loss is minimal now I top up every 3 months with a very small amount of coolant (about half a wine glass).

Places to check are the clamps joining the under car steel pipes to the rubber ones at the base of the engine. The clamp under the expansion tank. Check the radiator for corrosion, it is not unusual for Rads to corrode.

The Manifold gasket can be check to see if new or old type a little difficult to see but just about possible with a mirror and torch. May be someones web site has a pic. There is a very small tab on the bottom right of the inlet manifold, if this tab is Black it is the old type and WILL have perished by now, if it is the new type it is green and should be OK.

Check all the clamps and check the pressure cap to see if the rivet inside has popped, if it has the cap has failed so replace.

The Yellow /green coolant is designed to change colour after being in the car for 3 seasonal cycles so contamination may have accelerated the colour change. Just a thought.


Tim
tim woolcott

Not had this problem oh my "F" touch wood.

But did recently have this problem with my girlfriend's Clio.

The car just kept ditching ALL of its coolant, intermittantly.

The car was pressure tested, and no fault of leaks were found.

Problem was water pump had a loose connection, and wasn't operating correctly.
If the pump stopped working, it just seem to ditch the lot.
Took about a month to track this down.

My thoughts would be if it was a HGF, or the inlet manifold, would you not be seeing a lot more problems, if you've lost that amount of coolant at these points?

Pretty much knew, its wasn't a serious problem with the clio, because it was loosing about 5 litres at a time.

Not sure if this is relevant. But there's a lot of places you could be losing coolant, so think its would be wrong to jump to the conclusion, its an HGF.

Here's hoping its not too serious.
paul weatherill

Hi. Ive had a similar coolant leakeage prob on my MGF. It is usually the inlet manifold gasket which is the problem. If the engines been roasted then it could now be the head gasket as these things are made of alloy and are very sensetive to heat.

With the engine cold start the car for 5 mins then switch of while the engines still cold. Open the boot and remove the grill. Look along the edge of the cylinder head and around the inlet. U should now see puddles of coolant appear in the recesses of the engine block and drips underneath. The gasket will be the cause. This isnt a big job to replace yourself. For further details please email me.
mark

My worry would be that many HGFs appear to be caused by improper bleeding of the coolant system, which leads to an airlock and localised overheating.

Consequently even if the leak is something as innocent as a loose clip, make sure you bleed out any air when topping up the system.

Chris
Chris

My car was in Mike Saturs for a uprated head this summer and he found that the inlet manifold had afault on the left hand side, leading to potential fluid loss.
It may be worth checking this area although you shold see spots of coolant on the ground if you have this or the rusty rad/ pipe problem.
Also worth checking the 4 way hose( engine cover off job) at its lower T-junction mine split on the engine side, for no apparent reason giving a very obvious cloud of steam out of the vents.
Terry

This thread was discussed between 22/11/2002 and 28/11/2002

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