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76

Omega General Help / Re: Coolant system dirtier than my wife.

« on: 16 February 2011, 12:21:34 »

....The other flare nut attatched really easily, This one wont attatch at all. 

How about connecting this end first  :-/

Ah.....   


To my shame I hadn't actually thought of that. In my defence it was nearly 4am when I called defeat last night.

77

Omega General Help / Re: Coolant system dirtier than my wife.

« on: 16 February 2011, 12:04:45 »

....

Anyone got any tips, (besides leave such jobs to the pro's).

Cheers 

and you can't slacken the other end? I know it's stating the obvious but you just have to get the pipe as central as you can ............

Thanks Andy.

The top is end slack, only on a couple of threads, just so that it 'bites'.

It's not going on at an angle at the bottom end, in fact it's about as straight as you could wish, but for some reason the flare nut just isn't biting into the thread, kinda the exact same problem that I had with the flare nut into my brake caliper.

With the flare nut on the brake caliper it must have been torqued up to about 2 million lb/ft. This flare nut on the oil filter housing felt to only be 20-30 lb/ft, maybe even a little less, so I cant see how the thread could have strained or stretched or got damaged.

The other flare nut attatched really easily, This one wont attatch at all. 

78

Omega General Help / Re: Coolant system dirtier than my wife.

« on: 16 February 2011, 11:48:30 »

And now I'm stuck 

The union came off easy enough. Suprisingly easily actually, so I don't think that I have sprained the thread, but even after several hours of trying, I cant get the dam thing to screw back in again.  :-?



Anyone got any tips, (besides leave such jobs to the pro's).

Cheers 

79

Omega General Help / Re: Coolant system dirtier than my wife.

« on: 15 February 2011, 15:47:14 »

Thanks all for the advice.

When I am flushing the rad, is it just a case of top hose off and drain tap open, or do I need to dissconnect all the other pipes that feed into the rad as well?

Cheers.

80

Omega General Help / Re: Coolant system dirtier than my wife.

« on: 15 February 2011, 12:28:28 »

If that coolant has a pretty thin consistency, I am not convinced the oil cooler was the cause of that!

Oil cooler will cause sludge - not discolouration on it's own.

I'd have been inclined to do lots of flushing and then monitor, before condemning the cooler, in the abscence of sludge.

At this moment in time, as you, Chris and Entwood are speaking, I've got my fingers in my ears saying "la la la la I cant hear you" 

Too late now though. In my typical impulsive way I've already decieded that the oil cooler is at fault, whether it actually is or not.

Someone has been there before me though. Bucket loads of red and blue thread lock on a lot of the bolts, plus a return of the wonderfull yellow gunk sealant.



Anyway, when it comes to flushing the rad, do I just remove top and bottom hose, or do all the hoses connected up to the rad need removing?

81

Omega General Help / Re: Coolant system dirtier than my wife.

« on: 14 February 2011, 20:26:09 »

Oil drained, oil filter off, and here's a sample of some collant that I've just drained from the rad.

This time yesterday this was bright pink, mixed 50/50 with water. Since then the car has covered maybe 100 metres

The coolant was drained directly into the coffee jar, and the coffee jar was clean and dry prior to drainage.




What do you think?

82

Omega General Help / Re: Coolant system dirtier than my wife.

« on: 14 February 2011, 19:12:42 »

Yep. went to Machine Mart earlier and got myself a set, 10mm to 19mm for £14.

As luck would have it I missed the VAT free weekend by........



one day   

83

Omega General Help / Re: Coolant system dirtier than my wife.

« on: 14 February 2011, 19:03:52 »

I have had an oil cooler let go and it never daused any H/G problems. Im sure plenty of others will say the same.
If the car was driven as normal for a long period of time it would undoubtedly overheat regularily which could cause H/G trouble, but if youve been reasonably sensible I dont think it will cause the gaskets to blow imo.

I think poster was trying to suggest neglect would be cause rather than oil cooler itself. Because for the cooler to fail, it has to have had very poor coolant maintenance, which is also a main cause of HG failure. 

That's the implication, but not a realistic one, I believe this is a 2.6 from previous posts?

So not a 98.

We should consider that poor maintenance can give a very dirty coolant bottle, and not have a failed oil cooler!  Suggest a pic posted to confirm...?

Too late Chris, I've already bought all the parts and am just about to go outside and get started on the job.

I really appriciate your advice, and I don't want this to be taken the wrong way, (no dissrespect intended  ), but I've seen plenty of dirty coolant systems in the past. But this one, oh boy, it's really, really bad, hence why I am convinced that I have oil cooler problems.

I poured fresh bright pink coolant in, ran the engine for five minutes and it had turned poo brown.


Anyway, time to get my hands dirty again. I'll report back later when I happen upon the inevitable problems and foul-up's on my part. 

84

Omega General Help / Re: Coolant system dirtier than my wife.

« on: 14 February 2011, 16:54:09 »

I hate to be the bearer of even more bad news but chances are that if your oil-cooler is leaking then your head-gaskets may be on the way out too - a poorly maintained coolant system (not changing coolant every 2 years) is usually the cause.

May be worth doing a compression test while you have it striped down - may save you a little grief further down the line.

Owning an omega is certainly soul-destroying character building 

Oh for f#cks sake!

If they are then I'm firing it off to auction and I'll go back to a bloody Ford.

85

Omega General Help / Re: Coolant system dirtier than my wife.

« on: 14 February 2011, 02:53:18 »

Ok. Just had a read through the 'Changing the oil cooler guide', and even though it says "not everyone curses and swears", all I have to say is;

####! #### #### ####ity #### #### ####ing ####! 

All that ####ing time I had the ####ing oil filter off and the ####### plenum / inlet ####ing trumpet off, I could have done this ####ing job! ####!

All that new, fresh oil, wasted. fresh anti freeze, wasted. New gaskets, wasted. New oil filter, wasted. All my ####ing time and ####ing money, ####ing wasted! ####!

if after all this ####ing about, spending god knows how many ####ing hours in that freezing cold ####ing garage, scraping the ####ing skin off my knuckles, if this bloody car is a pile of #### to drive after all of this time, money and effort, I'm going to take a box of matches to the ####ing thing. 

Yep, the oil coolers shot. Theres nowt else I can think of that would cause such a massive build up of sludge and slim in my header tank. If it was rust, (and the rad looks in pretty good nick), then the car would be boiling more water than a kettle, which incidently it is not.


So, kick me in the balls whilst I'm down, but how much are these parts going to cost me?

New oil filters a cert, but what about the gaskets for the plenum and intake trumpet? These are brand new and the car hasn't even done 1/4 mile with those fitted. Do I need to spend £60 odd quid again buying new intake gaskets now that I have torqued everything up?

86

Omega General Help / Re: Coolant system dirtier than my wife.

« on: 14 February 2011, 02:15:19 »

oil in it? Its sludge like?

Oil cooler is nackered, get it changed, don't drive it while its like that, its a real pain to flush out

Not quite sure what it is Tunnie. Looks like a really heavy sediment / sludge build-up in the header tank. Having only driven the vehicle 20 miles tops since buying it, I cant really comment on whether the coolant system is up to any good or not.

So, worse case scenario and it is a knackered oil cooler, how much is this going to cost me, and can I do it myself without messing it up, (yeah, I know, optermistic).

87

Omega General Help / Coolant system dirtier than my wife.

« on: 13 February 2011, 23:31:02 »

And that's pretty dam dirty 

Having an old Landie that I use for off-roading, I'm pretty used to coolant systems being minging and filthy, but on the Omega it really is something else.

As I'm running short of time getting it back on the road I've just topped it up with fresh coolant which will have to do for the next couple of weeks, but TBH I don't think that flushing the rad, header tank and heater matrix is going to shift much of the grime.

So, a couple of questions. On Omegas with air-con, oil coolers and god knows what else plumbed into the rad, does everything need to be dissconnected before flushing the rad, or just the top and bottom hose?

Also are there any decent cleaning agents that can be used to shift some of this gunk, or are they all snake oils?

Many thanks 

88

Omega General Help / Re: brakes

« on: 16 February 2011, 11:59:01 »

Using the Autobahnstormers trade card, I got a front disc and pad set direct from Vauxhall, along with rear discs. The rear pads, (Pagid), I got from Euro Car Parts.

This worked out cheapest, without it being so cheap that I ended up with nasty discs / pads that don't last five minutes.

I'd also reccomend, (for how little they cost), getting a set of four disc retaining screws, as a couple of mine were seriously chewed up by the time I got them off.

89

Omega General Help / Re: ABS and TRACTION control light on

« on: 14 February 2011, 20:16:00 »

Oh no 

Even though I've only shunted mine about on the driveway, mine does the same. Rev counter flicks about, dropping to zero, (but with the car still ticking over nicely) and the ABS / TC light flickers.

90

Omega General Help / Re: Getting the Omega back on the road

« on: 13 February 2011, 23:17:13 »

Firstly congrats on the new job. I just hope it isn't for the position of 'fluffer' for gay porn movies?  (although if that's lesbo 'gay' then that might not be so bad  :-/ )

Anyway, to be serious, regarding insurance, just Google "day insurance" and it will come up with about a dozen firms. All of them in my experiance are pretty much of a muchness, (assuming that you aren't an 18 yr old 'yoof' trying to insure a Ferrari?).

I did this with a Rover 75 a few years back that I was taking to auction. £14 IIRC for two days cover.

And personally I'd also heed the sound advice of Lizzie with regards to the service work.