76,000 1.6 petrol overheating in traffic. Have drained and flushed whole system with thermostat removed and heater on full. Have fitted new thermostat. Have removed radiator,had running water through from both hose connections. Have blown air through radiator fins. On open road, temperature guage shows normal. In traffic, guage soon raches 90 deg. and electric fan cuts in intermittently, maintaining temp. slightly below that level. Any suggestions as to what can be tried to keep temp. normal would be appreciated.
Thank you.
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That sounds completely normal to me - in traffic, you have no air flow through the grill and over the radiator, so the fan switches on and off to keep the temperature down.
I had a 1.6 Astra and the temperature used to bounce around happily in traffic jams. I too was concerned about it, but dealer assured me it was normal. Particularly bad in motorway traffic jams, the fan would quite often drown out the radio when stationary!
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As Jesse says, sounds completely normal.
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My Cavalier has done exactly as you describe for 16 years from new. As others say it is perfectly normal. I once got stuck on the A30 in Cornish holiday traffic for 3 hours in slow moving traffic with the radiator fan cutting in and out all the time. Not a sign of overheating. It's when the fan doesn't cut in and the needle keeps climbing you have overheating.
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The Cavalier engine was designed from the outset with a minimal water capacity so that the engine ran hotter than normal resulting in excellent thermal & fuel efficiency. I ran a 2 litre SRi Cav for several years and with sparing use of the loud pedal could achieve over 40 mpg, which even by today`s standards is excellent. IMHO the 8 valve SRi engine was the best & most reliable motor Vauxhall ever made.
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Take it from an obssesive - its normal.
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Thank you to all who responded and put my mind at rest.I wonder if any of you Cavalier enthusiasts could help me with one more point. I can hear a whine in the transmission when the engine is ticking over in neutral with the clutch pedal released. According to my manual the obvious diagnosis is 'worn input shaft bearings'. Is this likely to be the case and if so, how serious is this? How many bearings are there, how urgent is it to replace them and how is it done? The clutch release bearing has just been replaced.
Thank you.
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You'll know if you have gearbox bearings worn on these and soon as you drive it. They are also not too difficult to change, but you will need some special tools, a vice and a bearing press.
If you only have a whine at idle I would'nt worry about it as long as the gearbox oil level is correct.
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On the early four speed Vauxhall gearboxes, replacing the bearings on the outside end of the shafts was simplicity itself. You didn't need to split the gearbox at the clutch, no engine/gearbox mountings needed to be disturbed, you could just take the end casing off, shafts, gears, selectors in one!
The only extra difficulty you would face on a five speed 'box is getting fifth gear off the end of its shaft - a puller is required. The fifth gear operating linkage comes off easily if you heat up the two small allen screws holding it to the casing.
However, if the noise is slight, and the car is old, and the oil level is ok, then I would live with it.
number_cruncher
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>>IMHO the 8 valve SRi engine was the best & most reliable motor Vauxhall ever made.
I'll second that; much better than these blinkin ECOTECs. My 1.8 petrol Cavalier Mk3 was still averaging 45 mpg when I pensioned it off!
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Office Cav is 95 ECOTEC 2.0. 156000 clicked over today. Its in FSH
indicates a Headgasket job last year. Uses no or little oil pulls like a train and according to admin returns around 38 mpg....seems relaible enough.
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Yep, my '95 Omega with the same 2.0 ECOTEC manages 35 mpg; so 38 sounds fair for a Cavalier - it's just annoyances like cam / crank sensors ( which IMHO should last the life of the engine) often only lasting 40K and costing 100 notes + labour to fix; and their propensity for snapping cam belts, even at < 40K miles.
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NC. you are missing the point here. This guy has a whine in Neutral at tick over i.e. stationary. This is INPUT shaft/ layshaft not output shaft related. I would suggest that if the noise does not get worse with speed or load I would leave alone but do scheck the oil type and level is correct. Regards Peter
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Peter,
I didn't say it was output shaft related - did I?
There are 2 bearings in the end casing, one for the input shaft, one for the output. Usually, once you've gone to the trouble of getting this all apart, you tend to put a bearing on each - otherwise it might be false economy.
number_cruncher
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