Car getting hot and bad water smell under the hood

Cheers mate! will look into a new radiator! I thought it didnt look that healthy... I think ive seen some floating around ebay... just need to find the right one.

Serck Marston should be fine.

Echo above - Even if that's not the main problem, that rad is Donald Duck'd anyway and will be cheap to replace on an Escort for peace of mind - You don't need anything fancy as the 1.1 can't generate enough heat to really test it!

While you're there, time to do some preventative maintenance on the assumption that if the rad is that bad the rest of the system will need some attention:

- How old are the rad hoses and thermostat? All cheap enough that they can be replaced as a matter of course if they're old (or you don't know). Don't forget to replace the hose clamps too if they don't look too clever!
- Make sure you backflush the block and heater before installing a new rad - You'll be amazed what a difference a good flush makes to the heater now it's getting cold outside, also you don't want all that curse word going in your nice new rad and starting to block that too!
- Make sure you use decent antifreeze in the correct strength.

Do all this and you should solve the issue and won't have to worry about anything more than fluid level and the occasional visual inspection for at least a couple of years.

Cheers for all the great advice guys!! its a really big help!!

So far i've bought the Serck Marston Radiator for £40 (think thats pretty decent) and i'm know looking into Hoses, Termostat and Gasket . I've owned the car 5 years and nothing has been touched.




Regarding the the termostat... how do you chose the right temp one? I have read about cheap ones being awful and causing problems but, like i said this one has been in 5 years/ 10000 miles (ish). I'm a little concerned to mess with it as last winter i was stuck in traffic and the temp went right up to the red, i pulled over and let it cool down... never done it since. i've been piling on the miles this year as its my only motor now and  I'm not sure if it was a freak thing or what. Like ChasR says the price on these seem to be a bit all over the place. I've noticed the Gasket is as much sometimes  

Regarding the hoses... are we just talking about just Top and Bottom hoses? These ones are Motorcraft and seem in good nick, the clamps still seem good (and say Ford on them surprisingly ) But, i've found a couple more and i'm not sure if manufactures with these are massively important or not. I'll add a couple of pics of the Motorcraft Hoses and the ones i've seen as replacements.

Also noticed from inspection another hose seems to join the Bottom hose and run along the block to the water pump... cant find this yet but i can imagine thats a pain it it goes wrong 

Its a bit muddy under here at the moment...


(I'm ordering a new Rocker Cover Gasket at the same time... i know its a mess)


Not sure if these are as good??... not much info in the listing and the pipes seem to say QH on them or something of that ilk?







Lastly, when you flush the block do you guys use anything other than water? i'm sure ive seen products for this but, if i don't need them thats always good.


Cheers for all the help guys! 

The rad kicking in when it does is fine. The rad fan kicking in is no bad thing

I base my theory off a few cars. The main ones are the Fords.

If it's at a quarter normally, either your thermostat is shot or your housing is not sealing the thermostat correctly; the latter is more of a CVH issue due to years of using curse word coolant. Ideally, the gauge should go to halfway when normally running and stay there.

With the lower temp stat, my RST would get to just below half way. It would then rise to 3/4s. On the fresh rad it would drop back to halfway in around 30 seconds to a minute tops, with both aftermarket fans working. With the correct thermostat my RST would have stayed at at the halfway mark once warm up, and then raise as I mentioned previosuly. You can get lower temp rad switches for RSTs but I never bothered; the fans worked fine .

The '89 Escort XR3i I had with no stat would barely come off the bottom of the white segment: I don't think it had a thermostat TBH! My dads' Mk4 XR3i of the same vintage used to be at halfway all of the time. It would raise towards 3/4 of the gauge but never hit it. Like mine, the fans would kick in, and the car once again cool down to halfway again. This would repeat itself.

The Focus is an unfair comparison ; they have damped gauges. My Mondeo V6 with a similar damped gauge would be dead at halfway from 80 degrees all the way to 110! no I am not kidding! The gauge would not move. I only found this out through the car's self diagnostic and when my rad started playing up. The fans on that only kicked in once the car hit 100 degrees C! They did used to kick in quite a bit in town, and that car did alot of town driving.

Peugeots until '05 didn't have damped gauges, so their gauges wander a little too. My 205 fan would kick in at 3/4 of the way too. It never overheated with me. The only time it ever came close was at the Nurburgring! Despite the fan being on, I was in 34+ degrees C heat, stuck behind an AC'd coach in twisty hills barely going above cycling pace.

Cheers for your help everyone! I got a new radiator in. The old one was pretty shot at. Gave it a good flush through and a lot of curse word came out, i don't think it had that much antifreeze in at all!! New hoses are on but the thermostat hasnt arrived yet... its coming from Berlin apparently. Bought some gasket paper too so i'm good for a future thermostats haha.
It still lingers in the cold section of the temp gauge but i havent had that much chance to get out in it yet. Its come close to half but maybe the antifreeze mixture makes a difference ? or maybe the new Stat will change things... we'll see.