So. I walked away from this for a day or two. Tbh my dummy was a bit out. Well it was a lot out. But I'm a grown up (allegedly) and having a tantrum wasn't going to fix anything..
Got to work and had a dig round in our spares for a new top hose. My boss feeling sorry for me said I could use it to get the water system water tight again.. taking on board the fresh pair of eyes theory he also had a look over it. Tbh the cooling system on a 1uz is relatively straight forward. It can be simplified right down to water out (from the thermostat housing) and water in (to the front water bridge).. he also agreed with me that it's all plumbed in correctly.. I did run another pipe to the expansion bottle from the water bridge just to help bleeding. But nothing drastic.
With that figured I best check I had some water flow. To actually get to the water pump it's major strip down. As bullstarz has quite rightly said it's driven off the cambelt and basically everything from the numberplate back to the block needs to be removed (bumper, intercooler, rad, fan, turbo, link pipe, down pipe, wastegate,all the covers, then the belt itself).. as you can appreciate that's not ten minute job so rigged up some large bore clear hose refilled the coolant and prayed (water pump is easier than a headgasket)..
Well fired it up and sure enough virtually instantly it's bubbling away in the expansion bottle like it had one of those fish tank airstones in the bottom of it
I've also got enough flow from the water pump to fill a small swimming pool virtually instantly.. oh cock 😭
Undeterred figured I'd check the thermostat while I had access and using some 80degree water (checked with temp gun) it opens lovely and quickly too)...
At this point it's fate was pretty much sealed.. I'd decided it was most likely headgasket related. My boss (who started on spanners 40 year ago sadly agreed) and he could smell petrol in the coolant (i can't smell some things still, cheers Rona)..
Now I spat the dummy out as much as anything cus it's just not a good time at minute for me to be spending fortunes rebuilding an engine (cambelt and water pump kit is a lot, may aswell do MLS gaskets and arp head studs while it's out, I refuse to use inlet gaskets after last performance) but we're still doing house up, middle of remortgaging, kids birthday, holidays, her birthday etc etc. Plus I didn't want to miss the summer (it's not fun in winter on wet roads..
Those of a nervous disposition look away now
.. we've all seen the claims from stuff like steel seal and the likes about mending head gaskets.. now I know there not real fixes and it was never going to be long term.. if I could keep it going til September October time, one my money should have settled down a bit and two I won't be sad if the cars off the road while the weather's pants.. I've bunged it in the odd truck at work just to keep em running til I can get a headset or it comes off hire and tbf had some success.
The two popular ones seemed to be kseal ultimate or steel seal. Both come with money back guarantee if it doesn't work (assuming you jump through many hoops)..
Well I grabbed a bottle of the kseal ultimate and filled the cooling system back up with it in.. ran the car with the lid of the bottle and within a couple minutes the bubbling stopped in the header tank
both me and my boss both suitably gobsmacked couldn't really beleieve it haha.
Allowed it to come fully up to temp, fan came on still no bubbling still no pressuring.. let it cool off as the instructions said checked the coolant level. No lost coolant. It appeared to have worked and confirms my thought about headgasket failure...
I needed to grab some turf for the garden so figured I'd take the car and try it.. bare in mind it had turned into a kettle less than a mile from work on last test drive. 6 mile later at the 3rd garden centre (turf is seemingly the cement of the gardener's world at minute). It still had it's coolant in, no overheating no pressuring maybe it had worked ..
Not the normal thing you see in amongst the Toyota auris and Skoda yeti brigade at the garden centres
Set off back to work and about half way back you could tell it was warming up.. temp gauge was starting to head north.. concerned about another explosion tried to coast as much as I could (there are a lot of hills in Sheffield haha) less than a mile from work I'd got steam starting to escape under the front corner of the bonnet (where the second overflow tank is).. then into limp mode as it was clearly going wrong again..
With not a lot I could do continued on the flat as I heard a hissing sound, slightly concerned the heater matrix was going to blow and cover my legs in scalding hot water the hissing got louder until there was the mother of all bangs then steam and water came out of EVERYWHERE literally any opening around the bonnet and wings.. thankfully outside the car not in it (I'd have been writing this from a hospital bed if it had been in the car)..
Coasted to a stop and we'll.. I think that means it's broken..
Guess that that means the kseal ultimate wasn't that ultimate..
got dragged the last half mile back to work. Washed the coolant and kseal off everything stuck the hose through the engine and parked it up.. tbf to kseal I submitted the claim yesterday afternoon with all the evidence they wanted. And I've been refunded already for it. So least they do what they say..
Now as much as I said I wasn't building an engine at minute. I've had a proper engine stand dropped off last night by a mate. And the engine is coming out Monday. Even if I get it out and get it stripped it can sit on stand til I can afford the bits to put it right, perhaps I should start a gofundme since that's what all the cool kids do if they can't afford summat at minute
It will be back, better faster and more powerful than before.. just don't expect it to be a 5 minute job..
Cheers for sticking with it this far.. and cheers for all the support up to now.
Mat
I've also got enough flow from the water pump to fill a small swimming pool virtually instantly.. oh cock 😭
.. we've all seen the claims from stuff like steel seal and the likes about mending head gaskets.. now I know there not real fixes and it was never going to be long term.. if I could keep it going til September October time, one my money should have settled down a bit and two I won't be sad if the cars off the road while the weather's pants.. I've bunged it in the odd truck at work just to keep em running til I can get a headset or it comes off hire and tbf had some success. 
got dragged the last half mile back to work. Washed the coolant and kseal off everything stuck the hose through the engine and parked it up.. tbf to kseal I submitted the claim yesterday afternoon with all the evidence they wanted. And I've been refunded already for it. So least they do what they say.. 
