airlock troubles
Turbo Mini Forums

as you may have seen in the show us yours section I am finishing a K headed engine.

I am running drydeck with a front rad and I have major difficulties sorting an airlock that I have in the cooling system. I have a cinquesento rad in the front, and a recirculating thermostate beside it. then I have the leccy pump down by the lower crank pulley. I have a expansion tank mounted to the bulkhead up high, with a single pipe connected to the top of the radiator.

I have tried to fill it through the expansion tank, and through the 180 degree bend between the block and head. Still the pump doesnt seem eager to pump anything but air.

Any ideas?

Have you tried opening and bleeding at every point possible, witht the pump running?

if you can acess the pump release the jubilee clip and poke a screw driver in along side the pipe on the inlet side of the pump feed some water in from the expantion tank with the pump runing this has worked well for me on the racers with no real problams.
regards,
Paul.

hmm, would that not just introduce more air as air would leak in by the screw driver?

do what has been said but at the highest point possible!

no gravity will do its work an force the water out air will be forced out by the gravity,
rgards,
Paul.

Vac it down

You need to get the expansion tank tee'd into the suction leg of the pump. By doing this you are introducing a head of water to the suction side of the pump, and it will work a treat.
This is how the DON works, it now also has a small bore self bleeding pipe from the highest point in the system back to the top of the expansion tank. With it like this is it simply a task of putting water in and running the pump till the level stabilises, easy.

Hi,
What Tom said, it's the way almost all production vehicles are setup and it should bleed itself if the expansion tank is the highest point :)
Cheers,
Gavin

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I have a bleed pipe running from my head outlet pipe going straight to the expansion tank, works really well!

You could also bleed it from the inlet pipe but its easier to tig an extra pipe onto the outlet.

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