overheating 8v classic

[jonsharland]

I was speaking to Redline this morning about any things to watch out for and they mentioned that the 8v vaux live axle was prone to over heating,

 

can anybody add any more info. is this after long runs, sitting in traffic all of the above and has anybody found an effective way to keep them cool

 

Jon

[Super_Rich_Bernie]

Jon

 

Somebody may come along later with more concrete facts, however I think that there is an issue with heaters and thrermostats on the 8v Vauxhall cars. How your car behaves depends on what combination you have.

 

Mine, without a heater, runs with no thermostat in the coolant flow and consequently takes some tiome to warm up. It runs quite a low temperature when not in traffic. In traffic the temperature increases to the point where the fan cuts in and all is well.

 

For example coming back to London from Curborough yesterday morning it ran at about 60 degrees until I got to the North Circular when it went up to 80ish. Living in London I get stuck in traffic a fair bit, and have had no problems with overheating (or anything else other than frustration for that matter).

 

I now have a piece of aluminium cut to block some of the grill (about a third) which clips in place. In winter this raises the running temp a little and allows faster warm up.

 

The engines seem pretty untemperamental - surprisingly easy to live with given the webers.

 

Jonathan

[buroz]

My car used to be fine on the road, but used to get hot on the track (into the red).

However, I recently changed to an ali rad and it now runs really well. Never over heats, fitting a fan over ride switch is also good for confidence too.

[Graeme Smith]

Agree with Buroz's comments - only had problems on the track (with lots of slipstreaming), pretty much solved by an ali rad, and a fan over-ride is a good investment (wire a dufunct switch (heater?) to the radiator thermostat.

[N Longson]

My VX 1.6 originally came without a thermostat fitted and ran extremely cool when on the move (hardly registering on the gauge)and only registering up to 80 when stuck in traffic.

 

Have now had a thermostat fitted and engine runs at a constant 80 on the move or creeps up to 90ish when in traffic - but hasn't boiled over (yet!).

 

Car does appear to run a lot better with the thermostat fitted though - feels generally smoother with less pops and bangs from the exhaust.

 

Forgot to mention I have a heater fitted as well.

 

Initially I was getting a lot of coolant being blown out the expansion bottle after fitting the thermostat as i was filling it to just under the max line. Clive Kenrick (who services my car)drained off the coolant to just cover the base of the expansion bottle and this has resolved the problem and the car has been running fine for the last 2000 miles.

 

Neill

 

 

[se7enmad]

Hi!

 

Till now I have not had any heating problems with my Vx1.6 engine. The cooling system has tolerated our 40+ Celsius summer temperatures, getting stuck in traffic (in sweltering heat) for very long periods and having to follow slow drivers in narrow sections for a while. temperature usually sits at around 75C. Thermostat is in situ, and I have the standard radiator.

Only way of getting temperature up to 90-95 is sustained runs (ie more than 6 times up and down the quarter mile raceway) at that point oil pressure starts to go down and I give the car a break...

... good enough for me!

 

Antonella

(Malta)

1.6 Vx Classic + Quaife 4 spd box

[bl0498]

Jon,

 

When Caterham did the original installation for a vx1600 8v they got it all working in a car with a heater. When they then put the setup in scholarship cars such as JonathanG's (my old car) and Graeme's which don't have heaters they suddenly started overheating as there was less coolant in the system (no runs back to the heater on the bulkhead). Subsequently Caterham very quickly revised the submarine pipe and water pump pipes a couple of times to revise the flow to achieve the required cooling characteristics. When I built my scholarship car - it overheated almost immediately - we all then had 2 upgrades to pipes etc - if you have no heater it may be worthwhile checking you have the correct setup. The problems were noticed in late 97/early and mid 98 when these cars were first used so if you have a much more recent car there should be no problems. One tip (from Caterham Midlands) I used in my old vx 8v and my current 1600k is to use a high quality coolant - I used the recommended Comma Coldstream premixed product in both my cars rather than a trad antifreeze/water mix. Not sure why but apparently it does make a difference! I believe there were also some problems with expansion tank caps which caused some coolant loss - and thence overheating. Again these should be ok now.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Brian

[AndreK]

To add to the comments above. The Vx 1600 is best with the triple conning tower submarine pipe, if you want to run it with a thermostat. If you search for the 'Cooling on VX 1.6 thread' in the technical archives you will find a more detailed explanantion. I believe that the current (?last of) Vauxhall Classics have this.