Hi. Just brought the above car with 72K on a 56 plate. It seemed OK but then I changed the coolant, which was filthy. This has changed the environment within the engine which has loosened whatever was in there and now I have a serious cooling problem along with a tickover issue which I think are both related. The tickover cycles and changes every couple of seconds. When the car is as hot as the electric fan will allow it to be the tickover hits about 1000 rpm, fan kicks in and the tickover returns to what it was...rythmically cycling between 500-800 rpm. It also won't hold higher revs upto 1400-1500, I suspect EGR as when I unplug it nothing changes apart from the "spanner" light coming on. EGR is influenced by coolant and when I removed the water pump the channel that recieves coolant from the heater matrix was dry and pink. The EGR also "pops" about 30 seconds after startup so could be knackered.

When I removed the water pump there was massive amounts of excess Instant Gasket around the joints with the timing cover and I could some had broken of. After about 3 days flushing the heater core and about 100 gallons of water I eventually got a load rubbish out...two lumps of instant gasket and what I'm sure is Bars Leak rubbish.

Now both heater pipes are hot and firm under pressure but there's definitely a restricted flow because when I drive the car the coolant temperature gauge goes down to below 80, yet on tickover/stand still revving it's normal.

Is there anything I can run through the cooling system that will melt instant gasket or at least make it softer and plyable please?

Cheers.

Dave