Renault 19 engine termperature

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Tue 16 Sep 2003 20:25
Renault 19 engine termperature - brian doyle
The temp gauge in my renault 19 is dodgy. Appears to be reading way too hot. When the car is warming up, initially the gauge behaves normally with the needle gradually moving upwards. But once it reaches a certain temp. (1/3 from the bottom of the gauge) it quickly shoots up into the red zone. The first time this happened, I nearly had a heart attack and assumed that I had a serious overheating problem. I then did a lot of investigating in an attempt to fix the "overheating". Coolant flush, precautionary replacement of thermostat etc. Made no difference. Also, no signs of coolant leaks, airlocks, blown HG, blocked rad etc. I concluded that the car was not overheating and that there was a fault with the gauge. To be sure I've been checking the temp of the coolant in the expansion tank using a decent digi thermometer. I started the car from cold and left it at a fast idle (~2500 rpm) After a few minutes sure enough the gauge needle was in the red zone but the temp in the expansion tank was only 72°C. Thermostat was not open at this stage, rad still stone cold. A few minutes later the temp was 82°C and the top hose and rad were starting to get warm. At 86°C, the rad and top hose were definitely hot. Continued running the car until the fan came on - temp in the tank 93°C at this point.So, does this sound OK? What do you guys think of these temps, do they sound normal? thanks, brian
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Tue 16 Sep 2003 21:33
Renault 19 engine termperature - greaser pv
Make sure that the small dia. return pipe to the header tank isn't blocked, this has a considerable effect on the whole cooling system of this particular masterpiece of engineering
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