[Davef]

Greetings, This is my first post so please bare with me, I have done a few searches but unable to get a clear answer of what may be wrong with my daughters T Reg 1.4 Puma.

Basically it has been losing water slowly over the last few months but the headgasket has not gone.
The heater only blows cold air even when set to hot.
There does not appear to be any flow through the rad as the inlet hose is hot and the outlet hose is cold.
There is no sign of any flow through the expansion tank as this remains cold even when everything else is hot.

Please Help if you can.

Many Thanks Dave.F

[happy-kat]

I am not very good with heater issues, but thought of one place to look for lossing coolant.
If there is coolant on your spark plug tops (under the plastic rocker cover) then you have a leaking core plug

the Wiki (top right of page) has several articles on heating issues. Though I can't say if it is just the common faulty HCV that you are experiencing

[marc t]

Has the car had the water changed lately? It could be an airlock which is slowly been reduced hence the water going down.

I would try to bleed the cooling system first as this could help. Also the HCVs are useless. A quick test to see if the basic motor part of the HCV is working is to have the temp dial set half way then you should feel the motor on the side of it pulsing very few seconds. - This isn't a 100% test but its a quick one.

The expansion tank won't flow much water although I think when I rev mine with no airlocks there is some water coming back in the top pipe.

Another thing could be the water pump as this would stop the flow and could leak as well. Have you had the cam belt covers off and are there any signs of damp etc here? (A faulty HCV would also stop the flow and these are much more common to fail)

I hope this helps find a starting point and I haven't confused you too much.

[Davef]

Has the car had the water changed lately? It could be an airlock which is slowly been reduced hence the water going down.

I would try to bleed the cooling system first as this could help. Also the HCVs are useless. A quick test to see if the basic motor part of the HCV is working is to have the temp dial set half way then you should feel the motor on the side of it pulsing very few seconds. - This isn't a 100% test but its a quick one.

The expansion tank won't flow much water although I think when I rev mine with no airlocks there is some water coming back in the top pipe.

Another thing could be the water pump as this would stop the flow and could leak as well. Have you had the cam belt covers off and are there any signs of damp etc here? (A faulty HCV would also stop the flow and these are much more common to fail)

I hope this helps find a starting point and I haven't confused you too much.

Thats great for a starting point, I will try and strip out the HCV and see if that is showing any signs of a leak.

[Scary]

i had same problems with heating... first problem can be not enough coolant water
than HCV
or whole panel where potentiometer is. (- small woltage?)