OK, it's broken again - clutch this time

The main radiator bleed is an Allen bolt on mine, so quite easy to slack it off a bit and wait for the drips. I was wondering how David got at the heater circuit to bleed that. Guess I've been lucky, when I've changed the coolant, the heater seems to work OK without further heater-related intervention.

Small further complication, w're having a crapload of paving put down and there's been much digging out. Can't get the X1/9 out of the garage to put it on ramps to finish changing the sender, not until there's a floor outside the garage.

Here is where I put my bleeder

OK, just done a few laps of Shtrewsbaaary in second gear while Erslelf goes in a shop. Fan is coming on now, but it still got overwarm enough to prompt me to put the heater fan on (that made a surprising amount of difference). Time to channel SpeedyFiat I think and get down and dirty with the radiator.

I'll try flushing the radiator and the long pipes first. While underneath messing with the rad switch, the front hoses felt soft and the jubilee clips are rusty, i.e. been there a while. Whoever put the top clip on clearly did so with the radiator out, as the screwy end of the clip is at an angle that can't be got at with a screwdriver from underneath. Don't fancy trying to cut it without lunching the radiator, so, I need to get it out anyway. I can give it a good hosing and shaking about, see what comes out. The water that dribbled out when I changed the sender switch was very dirty.

There's a hlradiators.co.uk/company nearbyish (Ludlow) that do recore-ing . Promisingly, they say to bring it in and they'll check if it needs it first. Then again, it's already there when they tell you what it woudl cost. Still, if the cores are not too bad, they might pressure blast it or something. Could do with sorting this out before going to Brecon, time to get some hoses and clips off Claire.

Highly recommend you get it recored. I flush mine out, got a small improvement but only a recore fully sorted the cooling….

I seem to remember a VW radiator fitting the X19 at reduced cost, I can't remember the model but it was supposed to slot right in.
I will be up near Shrewsbury next week with my family, if you want to meet up PM me.

Scirocco, I read somewhere.

Going to try to take the rad out tomorrow. Looks easy enough in the Haynes, but it always does, and then you spend 4 hours trying to get a plastic cover off something that should have come away easily with 2 fingers. As an added bonus, don't have access to the garage as we're having a crapload of paving done and there's a huge pile of [strike]cat litter[/strike] sand in front of it. So, I'll be under it in the street with it up on wheel ramps, lying in the gutter when it's forecast rain. Going to put our other 2 cars in front and behind it, just in case. If I get the rad out, it'llstay out there on ramps until I put it back in (unless they use enough [strike]cat litter[/strike] sand that I can drive it gently into the garage dry. I suppose I could use the old hoses to join the tubes together at the front so I could at least fill the engine with water.

If I can get it to this guy in Ludlow he says he can do it this week, and I want to take it to the local classic car club's open night on the 18th (see stuff I put under "X1/9 spotting".

All this is contingent on it getting through its MOT of course, where it is right now.

And will do.

While rad is out might be a good idea to replace hoses and check everything out, fan , rad thermostat , would be a shame to put everything back only to find a problem later

Indeed, I'm keeping the rear hoses because they look OK and changing the front, which don't so much. Maybe I'll see to the back ones when I change the coolant again in a couple of years, assuming still have car/am alive.

I want to flush everything out as well as I can, as I don't want to put in a nice shiny re-cored radiator and then fill it with crap ouf the engine on the first day. Tempted to try one of those products that are supposed to dissolve all th rubbish out of the system, but probably won't. I've never been convinced they do much an worry they dissolve things that they shouldn't (old question, I know).

I'll get it clean as I reasonably can and refill it with nice clean water + Bluecol, the internets tell me my local Euro Car Parts has that. Getting harder to find glycol non-OAT antifreeze (see also non-hypoid gearbox oil and many other things).

The radiator came out without major issues, despite doing it lying in the gutter. Two old rusty Jubilee clips weren't budging, including one on one of the long pipes, so I cut the hose off. I have a Bosch plunge cutter, which is fantastic for cutting through these clips, takes about a minute of gentle application, and the steel cutter bit is not good at cutting the hose rubber underneath. it's my favourite tool.*

The Haynes says you have to undo more than you do while you're on your back. Just need to remove the lower fascia (2 bolts either side) and the nuts at either end of the crossmember underneath the radiator. Then the whole shebang falls out in one piece and you can take the crossmember and the fan off standing up in comfort, because wherever you lie under the car the dirty coolant will find a way of dripping on your mouth.

Anyway, off to this plae in Ludlow for a bit for the guy to work his radiatory magic on it.

*Yes, including that one.

PS: Survived another MOT yesterday, which qualifies for both woo and hoo.

In case anyone is wondering what radiator re-coring costs, just got a quote of £190-something + VAT from H&L radiators in Ludlow , Sheepshire, to which the answer was "yes please". Should be done by the end of the week.

I did use that Wynn's flushing stuff on the rest of it, no idea whether it's helped. I joined the front pipes with a bit of plastic 32 mm waste pipe from B&Q* and watched the temp gauge while doing the required 10 min + running with the stuff in, with th expansion cap off. Interestingly, with the heater and blower on, revving to 3000 rpm or so brought the temprature down as it pushed water through the heater (and made the air coming out noticeably hotter). I disconnected all the pipes, took th eengine drain plug out and hosed through everything. The flushing stuff came out a pale pink colour. Did have one odd thing - the expansion tank refused to empty while I was trying to flush through the block. I disconnected the hose from that at the head and blew water back the other way, back into the tank. Ran through fine after that.

The new drive looks lke it will be finished today. Hopefully no more need to crawl under it in the gutter - I can fill the block with coolant/antifreeze and get it the 20 metres or so on to ramps in the garage before the thermostat opens up and dumps it all on the floor (rear hoses are off). Maybe join the outlets to the radiator with the old hose to be on the safe side, with the heater on again.

Anyway, hope that's it for a bit. This year or so it's had a new speedo cable, clutch/release bearing, brakes overhauled, new clutch and brake master cylinder, and new timing belt/tension bearing, in addition to the re-cored radiator and new coolant hoses all round it's about to get.

*Fits very nicely into the radiator hose - a bit of this pipe with a washer machine waste nozzle on it to take the hose pipe would be a great way to flush out the long pipes from the top of the floppy hoses without spraying water everywhere.

Here's my lovely refurtled radiator, courtesy H&L Radiators, Ludlow, Sheepshire.



Initial impressions idling in the garage were good. Slowly got warm, fan would come on and off, seemed to be holding. I'll drive it properly on Wednesday. Didn't take a picture of the previous state, but a good third of the heat sinks between the cores were well rusted, with no obvious air path. And that's besides whatever was going on inside.

Fitting a radiator isn't a job I'm looking forward to doing again any time ever. it's heavy and really hard to get in place and then hold in place while you get one of the nuts holding the crossbeam started. And we have the flimsy plastic air scoop held in by four 13 mm bolts, while the heavy radiator (even more so full of coolant)/fan assembly bounces around on two 13 mm nuts on a pair of rusty studs.

While I'm here, I was wondering - is there significant flow through the expansion tank on these cars? If, say, I had a little bit of antifreeze left over (after filling my 2 litre ex-pop top up bottle) and thought I may as well put it in the car, would it find its way into the system if I put it in the expansion tank without draining any coolant off?

PS: The studs aren't rusty, it's copper grease.

Yes Mike there’s a good flow through the expansion tank.

Thanks Neal!