B series over heating?? Any help??

[clkupai]

Hi
I have posted a topic recently with the same issue but have more info now, so sorry for doing it again!
If anyone has time to read this topic and give any help it would be much appreciated.
Basically, my B16A2 has been overheating after long journeys, its complicated so bare with me!
The temp guage starts to climb when I come off the motorway and back into traffic, I have started to realise that this is because the coolant has been pushed into the expansion bottle and is staying there, therefore the rad is low on coolant, often I have to wait til the car cools down and pour the coolant back into the rad. The problem has been like this for a year now and it happens after long journeys, one garage suggested that the pressure builds up on these long journeys and is pushing the water into the expansion bottle.
I have changed the rad, hoses, rad cap, thermostat and coolant. I am worried it is head gasket but am praying it is not as its very expensive.
The car is fine around town and on short journeys, the fan seems fine, I dont see any coolant mixture in the oil, although the coolant is sometimes a bit murky, i'm not sure if this is because i use red coolant though. Bare in mind that this problem has been like this for a year now and i have done around 12,000 miles on it.
PLEASE! any help or anyone who has had a similiar problem please reply! I'm tearing my hair out!!

 

[KOUVPASIR]

Make a pressure test on every cylinder!
You can put pressured air from sparkplug hole (use an adaptor with the same coils as sparkplug).
Also piston must be on upper dead point.
open your radiator cup and fill the radiator to the top!
Wait for a few seconds ... if you see bubbles or water overflows the radiator neck , bad news... its a headgasket !
Do this procedure to every cylinder!

 

[jugbugz]

The water pump, thermostat and Radiator and Radiator cap are all treated as a consumable parts.

Do you have calcium built up in your radiator? You can tell when you see scaling formed on the surface when you open the radiator cap. If you have calcium scaling then you can use radiator flush to dissolve the calcium throughout the system. Calcium is formed when you've had non-distilled water in the system. It greatly reduces cooling efficiency.

If you don't have any strange substances in the cooling system, then its most likely the water pump, which is something you should change every 2 years along with the timing belt.

You don't need to go that far looking into head gasket leak problems unless your coolant is clearly contaminated and find grease in the system. Any average mechanic can spot a head gasket leak.

 

[KOUVPASIR]

Coolant gets murky and change color when mixed with gases...
You must do that presure test!

 

[clkupai]

Thanks guys, gonna do a pressure test soon, reckon it is a small leak in the gasket tho. Thinking of trying to save for a rebuild!!