peugeot 306 1.4L cooling trouble | Technical matters | Back Room Forum

Mon 31 Jul 2006 20:04

peugeot 306 1.4L cooling trouble - 1.4_pug_306

hi, ive just replaced the head gasket on a peugeot 306 1.4 but now the car overheats after 5-10 mins of ideling.
Before i changed the head gasket the raidator fan worked fine, now its not kicking in. When i short the rad switch out the fan come on.
Before i replaced the head i cheked the thermostat by suspending it in a pan of water and it fully opened at about boiling point, the haynes says it should be fully open at 99.
Checked the waterpump and its roating smothley and all in one peice.
Ive put water in through both the thermostat housing hole on the head and through the coolant hose on the inlet manifold and it comes out of the radiator bottom hose fine. The only thing i cant get it to do is come out of the engine drain plug.
Anyone got any ideas.

Thanks in advance for any help

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Tue 1 Aug 2006 00:00

peugeot 306 1.4L cooling trouble - Railroad.

Don't play around with waxstat thermostats, just replace it every couple of years. If the engine gets too hot the wax will go thin and be lost causing the thermostat to fail to open. It might open in a saucepan, but it could be opening too late and closing too early due to a loss of wax, resulting in engine overheating. For the sake of a tenner it's just not worth persisting with an old thermostat.

Does the temperature gauge fall if the heater is on full and hot with the windows open? Does it fall if you reduce speed, and rise as you increase speed? If so you may have a restriction in the radiator, or the system maybe full of brown muck which is corrosion. Try flushing the system and re-anti- freeze when it's clean. Anti-freeze should be in your system all year round. It's not just a winter thing, and it's goes off after three or four years and needs changing.

But above all renew your thermostat.....

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Tue 1 Aug 2006 15:07

peugeot 306 1.4L cooling trouble - chriswales

Depending on the age of the car replace the thermostat is a sensible move when you have drained the cooling system. In my experience they start failing after around 8 years, but normally sticking open so you get the engine running too cold in the winter.

I never personally drain the cooling system of my old 306 (but a number of garages had to) from what I have heard it is very easy to get air locks in the system. The heater matrix being a prime point since it mounted high in the engine bay, are you getting hot air out of the air vents ?

As railroad said draining and flushing the system would be the first step, since replacing the head gasket could have introduced rubbish into the system. Then refilling the system using the procedure and bleed screws listed in your Haynes manual.

Good luck.

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Tue 1 Aug 2006 15:24

peugeot 306 1.4L cooling trouble - madf

You will have a large amount of air in sytem which prevents the temperature sensor for the fan reading imo.
You did refill and bleed it using an extended bottle mounted on the radiator top ? (read the Haynes manual).
If not it can only be refilled using pressurised system as some of the pipes iirc and above the level of the header tank.
madf

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Wed 2 Aug 2006 16:55

peugeot 306 1.4L cooling trouble - 1.4_pug_306

I replaced the thermostat and put coolant in using a 'header tank' bleading the system at the apropiate points and it works fine now. Thanks all for your help, really saved my bacon.

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Wed 2 Aug 2006 19:00

peugeot 306 1.4L cooling trouble - bell boy

next time jack the car up as far as it will go so the header tank fitted to car gets a good head of (steam) water,dont forget to open the bleed nipple as well and its a 10 minute fix...........sorry didnt read thread earlier

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