Urgent Advice Needed - Cooling

[Skibum346]

Guys,

On the way home from the garage...AGAIN... tonight.... I suddenly produced a huge cloud of steam and it seems to be coming from a housing in front of the engine cover on top of the 300tdi block.

Being new to diesels not certain what it is but it seems to have a plastic screw in bung similar to the radiator bungs. If it was a V8 I'd have called it the thermostat housing. Anyhow... on exploring it... what I thught was a slot for a screwdriver... was a hole! It may have started life as a slot... but it's certainly not ended life as one.

So... can anyone tell me what this is and help me with a diagnosis..?

Is it simply a case of changing the bung.. refilling and carrying on as normal, putting it down to wear and tear on the bung... or is there something else I should be concerned about.

On the journey immediately prior to this car was driving fine, no sign of overheat and the heating didn't start going cold till after this happened. Oh... I was doing... ahem... 70mph  ;) or thereabouts but there was no sign of stress on the car.

Looking forward to some advice from you petr...ahem...diesel heads!

Skibum

[Skibum346]

Just spotted a pic in another post by MRAlford that shows the housing I'm talking about!

So assuming he doesn't mind (Thanks!) I've nabbed his pic and indicated the housing in question...

[ChrisW70]

Frank, yes it is the thermostat housing and it should have a plastic blanking plug in it - you can replace it for a half inch bsp blanking plug from a plumbers merchants.
To top the system up remove the same type of plug from the top of the radiator and the cap from the expansion tank. Fill the system via the thermostat housing until water comes out the top of the rad, fit the plug to the thermostat housing then keep filling at the top of the rad until you stop getting bubbles, refit the plug to the rad and check the level in the expansion tank. Job done

[Skibum346]

Thanks matey.... is this a common problem...? Would the plumbers one also be plastic...?

Ski

[ChrisW70]

the plastic one's tend to have problems, the plumbers one's are normally brass - try and get solid one's if you can, they make 'hollow' one's as well but these can shear. You'll need a fibre sealing washer as well.
I'm pretty sure you can get the solid one's off ebay complete with a fibre sealing washer, look under land rover radiator plug.

[Range Rover Blues]

Or X-Eng :)