Do you think it would be a good idea to do a complete coolant flush then? I got this car v cheap recently and I've already spent a lot of mine trying to improve it so I'd rather avoid selling it, as my budget would only stretch to about £1000 do obviously any car at that price is a risk anyway.

Thanks a lot for the response by the way

I had an airlock problem fairly recently which I thought, and was told by everyone and his dog on the internyet, was a blown head gasket, (3-cylinder engines tend to be especially prone to them) but it cleared in time with (touch wood) no apparent damage.

I'd say the risk with letting an airlock clear itself might be that it causes local overheating which then blows the head gasket, self-fulfilling-prophecy-of-doom stylee.

Some cars are allegedly especially prone to airlocks (VAG gets mentioned) and require vacuum filling, for which gadgets are apparently available on the US market, dunno about the UK,

If there's a next time I'll probably try a big sink-unblocking syringe to "burp" the system, or maybe a venturi pump. If you've got bleed screws (none on my car) you may not need to do this,

IF it turns out to be a head gasket problem there are stop-leak tablets (Barrs Stop-Leak IIRC) based on ginger root fibres . Never used them but they allegedly sometimes work, at least for a while, and aren't very expensive.

Compression test, leak-down-test, cooling system pressure test, and exhaust-gas-in-coolant test may give diagnostic clues, the exhaust gas test probably being the most sensitive.

Edited by edlithgow on 17/03/2019 at 01:11

Honestly o think I topped up the coolant in error, because I thought there was none left. I looked at the "overfill" tank and say that it was empty so poured more in. Though ive siincelearned that coolant doesn't always show in this tank, so I may have added too much.

Thanks for the advice re Haynes. Obviously a simple thing to do, ill try to buy an ebook version if they're a thing

Thanks for the update, OM, and good to know it was a cheap fix (which you could have DiY probably). At least no headaches about head gaskets ....

Coolant level varying can be a sign of a blown head gasket. Combustion gas in coolant channels round head and block displaces coolant making it look artificially high in, or even leak out from, expansion bottle. Gas then works its way back to bottle and coolant level drops dramatically.

My Peugeot 104 owned from 82-86 played this trick regularly.