Flushing Engine Block

[Htiek]

Good Afternoon Folks,
I've been lurking on the forum for a while learning about Vitesse's. Having taken the plunge, unfortunately my first post is related to a problem
I was trying to flush out the cooling system on my recently acquired Vitesse. The block drain tap lever was seized so I removed the whole assembly to free it off. Imagine my horror to find that it was in the 'drain' position all the time I had driven the car home!  ??)
The tap was completely silted closed but even with it removed I can encourage no coolant to appear out of the block when attempting to reverse flush. I tried some radiator flushing fluid at the weekend but still no joy.
I am wondering if anyone on here has encountered a similar problem and can offer any advice or suggestions on what can be done to de-silt the head and block, hopefully in-situ?

Cheers,
Keith

[Clive]

Coat hanger, or better still thinner wire. A good poke about.
I disconnect most of the coolant hoses, particularly the pair to the heater (flush that alternating ways several times) and connect the hose up to the pipe under the carbs. Reverse flush the rad a few times too. It takes a while, and the amount of stuff that comes out is scary.
If a garden hose is cut nice and square, it makes a good seal against the block drain when pressed. But crud behind the drain is very common.

Once it is all flushed, i then use flushing agents to get as much as possible out.

Hope that helps, you can have a good poke about with the wire, nothing to damage really.

[JohnD]

Problem with those "radiator cleaners" is that the cleaner can only attack the top or bottom end of a fine tube, full of gunk.  The area exposed is tiny compared to the mass of the blockage, so a hopeless task.   And if the bottom tank is so bloked up as to make the drain tap superfluous, it really IS bunged up.

I think you MUST take the rad out.    Put some water in and give it a good shake, holding it so that you can block the hose tubes with your hands - its a wet task otherwise!  And a hard task - but keep at it until no more rubbish comes out after the last shaking session. Then flush it out in reverse direction, water in at the bottom, refit and try running the car.

When you start up, run your hand over the radiatior matrix as the engine warms up.   There may be tubes that never heat up - they are blocked, probably for ever.

If you find that the rad cannot be cleared, consider having it rebuilt and a new matrix fitted.   This is far preferable to a new radiator as those are very expensive (£250?) and not as well built as they were originally.    Most large towns will have a radiator repairer.
JOhn

[thescrapman]

If you want to be a cheapskate you can desolder the top or bottom tank and poke the tubes out with a bit of welding wire.

The solder it back on.

Cheers

Colin

[Pete Lewis]

simplest flushing agent is simple washing soda,  make up a good strong solution and run it for a few days, dont leave it in for long as this will eat away at the alloy parts.

flush well after.with clean water .

garden hose on a radiator is not much help  a 1/2 hose will pour merrily through half a dozen oped rad tubes when the other 50 are clogged solid

as said poke and prod away , or strip the whole and send block  for chemi cleaning,  Bit drastic !!,   as for heaters and radiators ...if in cooling troubles get them re cored .

if you have any hi/hot  gauge readings make sure you have  a 82c stat  with a jiggle pin to bleed air out, ,have a working volt stabilier on bi metal gauges,fitted the right way up and earthed , and have the correct spec gauge transmitter before you strip things down

Pete

[JohnD]

thescrapman wrote:

Then solder it back on.
Colin

That instruction is as minimal as "Reassembly is the reverse of the previous procedure"!
Respect, Colin, if your skills include soldering to that level!

JOhn

[thescrapman]

JohnD wrote:

That instruction is as minimal as "Reassembly is the reverse of the previous procedure"!
Respect, Colin, if your skills include soldering to that level!

JOhn

It is a bit "re-assembly is simply the reverse process" isn't it.. :-)

I reckon someone with good plumbing skills should be able to do it.

I may give it a go one day, just for fun.

Cheers

[Htiek]

Thanks for the advice. Wire coathangers appear to be an endangered species, I could only find plastic ones on my raid of the wife's wardrobe! I found an old wire pushrod left over from my aeromodelling days and after some poking about with that the floodgates opened  :)
The heater valve looks to be well gummed too but I do have a replacement on the way.
The metal pipe to the heater seems to be an odd-ball however. It has a tee branch below the inlet manifold and also an 'open' end that has been fitted with a rubber blanking hose (see photo). I don't like the look of it, a potential fail point I reckon. At some point it has had the manifold swapped to take twin SU's. I assume this pipe must have come from the donor vehicle.
I'll try a thorough flushing and the soda crystal treatment in the next day or two.
Cheers,
Keith

[Nick Jones]

thescrapman wrote:

It is a bit "re-assembly is simply the reverse process" isn't it.. :-)

I reckon someone with good plumbing skills should be able to do it.

I may give it a go one day, just for fun.

Cheers

I've done it with a heater matrix.  Radiator end tanks are beyond the abilities of my blow-torch!

The blocks can trap an amazing amount of crud though in my experience Vitesse engines are less bad than saloon engines as the latter are mounted with that corner lower causing all crud to collect in that corner.

Nick

[Pete Lewis]

the hardest part of any soldering on old stuff is getting it clean so the flux and solder take and flow,
has to be scrupulously clean, a good flux and a decent stick of solder, it would take yards of multicore  !!!
and a blow torch

you get all the way around the tank and the last 20mm spreads apart and wont stick, so its all back to the start again rules.

you can get the tanks quiet hot without melting the core tubes but you have to take care

   quicker to take to those that can !!
     what happened to self cleaning acid flux that worked but seems to have health and safetied off the shelves ,   not spotted it for some while,  


if its smiths heater valve you can remover the pop rivet and unclamp by rotating the claw/bayonet to seperate  two halves and clean the whole inside
mark the case or you wont index it back to the right place.

Pete