Overheating due to radiator problems; was Re: Radiator fan switch 2

[superba]

Hi All,

I don't know how old the subject 4K car is;  however, there is a good chance
that the radiator has been "rodded out" at least once.  Some radiator shops
that rod out radiators leave out the baffle(s) which permits the coolant to
circulate back to the engine without having passed through enough of the
heat exchanger.  The effect is amazing;  it happened to my radiator once and
the best wrench that ever worked on my car showed it to me.  The side of the
radiator closest to the engine was untouchably hot, but the side toward the
left front wheel was little more than body temperature.  The net was a
markedly reduced heat exchanger.

My .02.

Cheers!

Jim Jordan

>  Message: 4
>  Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 10:13:04 -0500
>  From: "Steve Sears" <steve.sears at soil-mat.on.ca>
>  Subject: Re: Radiator fan switch 2
>  To: <quattro at audifans.com>
>  Message-ID: <008801c3ecc3$b887ef00$1fb8e2d1 at steve>
>  Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>  Paul,
>  Check that you've bled all the air out of the coolant system.
>  If I recall,
>  the 4k is deceptively hard to get all of the air out - which leads to
>  overheating.
>  I had a similar problem - The car would initially heat up, then the heat
>  would drop (t-stat opens, some heat lost in rad heat sink), then the heat
>  would climb until the car boiled over.  Problem: Blown Head Gasket in #5
>  (firewall end) cylinder was pressurizing the coolant system.  Check the
>  pressures in all cylinders - #5 was marginally out of spec in mine before
>  the head work.  One of the guys at the West Toronto Audifans meeting once