Car reaching max temp (H). Help.

[stooge]

Oh damn, so there’s no way to drain it or lower the water level in there? Just have to wait?

 

[lmoengnr]

Oh damn, so there’s no way to drain it or lower the water level in there? Just have to wait?

A large fluid syringe should work.

 

[Skylarking]

absolutely love your in depth reply, I’m not a car guy at all but reading this has definitely helped for sure! really appreciate it!

Do you know how to drain the overflow tank by any chance? As I topped that up with water the other day when it was overheating to try and cool it down and I checked the dip stick of the overflow tank and it Didn’t have coolant init at all, just the water I put in. So I was going to empty the water and add coolant

Glad you liked the primer…

Probably worth getting a copy of the VF Workshop Manual PDF by clicking here. Easiest to download and read the pdf on a computer though. It has good explanations of various things…

Page 5456 of the workshop manual describes how to get access to the coolant expansion tank and how to remove it… You need to jack up the front of the car and safely support it on stands, remove the right front wheel and the wheel liner and some deflector before you can access the expansion tank and then remove it… it’s a bit of a PITA really…

When the system is cold, the radiator should be full of coolant which can be checked by removing the radiator cap and looking at it. If it does need topping up, likely it’s got air in the system so read through @Fu Manchu thread on coolant flush and how to get air out of it which he linked to earlier…

Hopefully the radiator won’t need topping up so replace the radiator cap and check the expansion tank dip stick which should be filled to the low or cold level. The PITA is that all this needs to be done on level ground after you’ve jacked up and inspected the expansion tank for damage, cleaned it, drained it, etc and put it back together… something that may still need doing…

No idea how much coolant the expansion tank needs from empty to get to the low or cold mark on the dipstick, or how much more the expansion tank can hold before it overflows but both numbers are important… If the expansion tank has a crack that is above the low mark but below the high mark, you will loose some coolant every time the system gets hot as you drive (already mentioned by others). Loosing coolant this way isn’t great so a leaking expansion tank will cause issues which is why it’s a PITA where Holden put the tank…

Obviously you can siphon out fluid, just don’t suck on the siphon tube as coolant and it’s vapours aren’t great for one’s health, infact coolant is poisonous. Use a jiggle siphon instead. Unfortunately emptying the expansion tank this way won’t tell you if you have any splits causing leaks, etc… Guess you can look through the manual which may specify the low volume and high volume coolant levels and at what fluid level the tank overflows at so maybe you can test it knowing these volumes. But as I said, a visible tank makes life much easier… Guess it’s the price we pay for reasonably cheap V8’s

Good luck with it.