:: Diary - January 2004 ::

:: Saturday, January 3, 2004 ::

A lovely day for a drive to the TVR Club meeting, stopping off at the TVR shop for a gander. It turns out to be closed. Joy.

On the way back the car boils over again. Well, steam from under bonnet. Deep joy. When I get home I scramble under the bonnet, there's no sign of antifreeze leaking, but I am still mindful of that wet radiator before. I go and buy a bottle of Barr's Leaks (a chemical version of the egg white trick) and tip it in and top up.

A test drive to get the engine hot, then drive home and leave it to cool. Later, taking off the radiator cap, I find Barrs Leaks under the pressure sealing washer - so it's obviously not sealing right and not pressurising properly. I start to fear the worst - that the head gasket is leaking and therefore over-pressuring the system. I need a hydrocarbon test, to check this.

I fill up the radiator and put the car away.

:: Sunday, January 4, 2004 ::

Much research fails to turn up a single source of a home hydrocarbon tester. I would have to take it to a garage. Not ideal.

:: Saturday, January 24, 2004 ::

First reasonable weather this year.

So today I checked the radiator coolant level, and then decided to help the pressure caps to seal by sanding off the corrosion around the lip. I also swapped the pressure caps back as they were originally because they seem to sit better that way (even although the book says that's not right)

Then as an added precaution, I wired in a switch on the steering column, to operate the radiator coolant fan manually. 6 foot of wire, a switch (about 20 years old) that I found in my shed, 4 electrical terminals, and two hours later, it's finished! Now whenever the temperature starts to rise, I can flick my wee switch and bring the fan on before it reaches the critical temperature. If I miss it, the automatic system still works too, as a backup.

Two test drives later and all is well, so far.