On a Motorway drive of about 100 miles, the temperature guage started increasing from the normal mid point towards the red point, this initially started happening when we reached crawling traffic and 2nd gear seemed to effect it the most.
After a while it went back to the mid point.
Then a little further on the needle pointed at the red again.
As we were waiting for pick up we had a look in the engine there seemed to be nothing unusual with coolant or fan.....
Any ideas would be great.
Thanks
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 10/11/2008 at 13:41
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Did the gauge actually reach the red zone? Once cooled; what is the coolant level? When the gauge was high, was the radiator fan on at high speed?
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The gauge did get to the top of the dial, in the red zone and stayed there.
Prior to this in lower speeds it was rising and falling.
Im not sure what Im looking out for in terms of coolant level and radiator fans, but everything did seem normal.
I was later told when i set off on the journey, the car sounded rough starting.
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Do you have any technically-savvy relatives or mates who could cast an eye over it for you.
Overheating can cause serious damage if left unfixed.
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From the symptoms given, i would suspect the Cylinderhead temperature sensor. There is no gauge sender on this application.
If the ecu detects a high cylinder head temperature it will derate the engine, which could account for the rough sounding running mentioned. I was told that you can run indefinitely without coolant at up to 50 mph, giving a failsafe cooling system. This was achieved by turning off one pair of cylinders for say 100 cycles, then alternating with the other pair off. The "off" cylinders are cooled by air flow through them.
The sensor fits in a blind hole, so no coolant is lost when changing it, and I think is fairly easy to get at.
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Thought about the electronic cooling fan sounds awfully like the symptoms you get when it failed.
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Thank you for all your comments..... I got through alot of reading yesterday.
Last night we ran the DTC, self test function (pressing the tripometer whilst turning the ignition).
We got a code that corresponds to a low battery voltage.
and a code that states "Engine Coolant Temperature Circuit Low Input"
We got lots of other codes but cant seem to make sense of them,
Could it still be the same issue - cylinder sensor?
Could the battery voltage effect the temperature sensor?
The car has been in for a diagnostics today the Ford garage said its likely an electrical fault. They stated cylinder sensor or instrument cluster, but said they didnt know.....and wouldnt carry out any work until they knew for sure. Funnily enough they failed to spot the low battery voltage.
As you can tell Im not "technically savvy" so Im amazed I found something they didnt!
I asked them about other common issues such as the instrument cluster lead being close to the spark plug leads, it couldnt possibly be that Im told.
I think Im going to replace the battery and cylinder sensor myself (Im told its easy to do). But I get the feeling I wont know if there is still a problem until I do another 200 mile drive.....
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Couldn't fit the temperature sensor myself.
But as I had the bonnet open I listened to the engine running and the water pump appeared to be cutting in and out. any other ideas?
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Surely the coolant pump should be running 100% of the time?
How do you know its cutting in and out?
James
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I could see it, on the left hand side of the engine, the belt goes round a few pulleys, the water pump (Im told) is the one at the very bottom near the front. I could hear a click, click, click and worked out it was the water pump stopping and then starting again every few seconds.
Well Its in today for its second diagnostics, so hopefully I can report what the issue is shortly.
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If it has air-con; then that's the lowest pulley at the front - and wil cut in and out as demand requires.
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The water pump will run continuously.
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The removal procedure for the 1.6 CHT sensor seems fairly straight forward - it's just on the top of the engine block between two of the spark plugs according to the Haynes manual. You just need to make sure you have a new sensor to fit, as they're distorted when screwed into place so shouldn't be re-used.
It's much more difficult to change on the 1.8 as it's on the back of the engine block and harder to get to, meaning that a number of other components need to be removed to get to it (the alternator for one IIRC)
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