I thought I’d ask here as you lot have a lot of knowledge on here.
Just acquired a 1.3 1981 golf and I think it has a cooling issue. Bear with me on this one.
When I start the car from cold, temp gauge immediately goes to halfway, car runs fine, upper and lower rad hoses get warm really quickly, fan kicks in… when I switch off the engine and start it from warm/hot, temp gauge immediately jumps to max and red light flashing.
Matrix pipes are hot, as mentioned upper and lower rad hoses hot… but the expansion water stays pretty cold… the car does not overheat.
Now, the pipe that usually returns coolant to the expansion tank doesn’t have any sign of returning coolant even when revving it.
Is that a sign that the water pump is not working? I’m leaning toward that as the problem, or could it be the T stat?
I’m going to order a pump and stat etc tomorrow to try as I think they should be done especially if the car is new to me.. But any thoughts would be appreciated… before I rip it out and put a big block turbo in there.
Just acquired a 1.3 1981 golf and I think it has a cooling issue. Bear with me on this one.
When I start the car from cold, temp gauge immediately goes to halfway, car runs fine, upper and lower rad hoses get warm really quickly, fan kicks in… when I switch off the engine and start it from warm/hot, temp gauge immediately jumps to max and red light flashing.
Matrix pipes are hot, as mentioned upper and lower rad hoses hot… but the expansion water stays pretty cold… the car does not overheat.
Now, the pipe that usually returns coolant to the expansion tank doesn’t have any sign of returning coolant even when revving it.
Is that a sign that the water pump is not working? I’m leaning toward that as the problem, or could it be the T stat?
I’m going to order a pump and stat etc tomorrow to try as I think they should be done especially if the car is new to me.. But any thoughts would be appreciated… before I rip it out and put a big block turbo in there.
