Air In Cooling System On S1 ?

[r1bul]

hi guys.

i recently had the pleasure of changing my alternator on my s1 elise.

to get the new 1 in i had to remove the hose that splits into 3 that sits at bottom of car behind o/s rear wheel.

i fitted the alternator and reconnected the hose. retopped up antifreeze and all seemed great.

BUT now i have the problem, that every time i turn engine off, about a cup of antifreeze gets dumped under engine .

when driving car the temp is reading fine.

 

Is it a build of pressure due to air in system ?

does anybody Know how to properly bleed the system?

thanks steve

[dobbo]

You've probably got a few airloacks !

 

Normally, it takes at least 3 good goes to fully bleed the system. It helps if you can face the car downhill, as steeply as possible. There's a bleed screw near the expansion tank and another on the outlet from the radiator itself (down the outside of the radiator shroud or in through the wheel-arch liner on the passenger side). You need to run the car until the radiator is hot (or the thermostat won't be pushing water and trapped air through the system). By the time you do the third bleed, the water will be VERY hot, so take care.

 

Next time you do the alternator, it comes out through the rear wheel arch liner OK - sorry, not much help now, is it !

[r1bul]

thanks dobbo will get onto it. steve

[Martin R]

Ive copy and pasted this as i CBA to type it all out again

 

Lotus recommend you pressurize the system to bleed it properly. I presume this is due to the rad being at the front as opposed to the normal K series configuration.

 

I used a Gunnerson Ezi bleed from Halfords to do this. Its for bleeding brakes but works on cooling systems as well. It comes with a variety of cap sizes and one fits the Elise expansion bottle.

 

I dropped the pressure in the near side rear tyre to about 15 psi as you dont want to blow the pipes off. Attach the cap from the Ezi bleed to the top off the expansion bottle. Pressurise the system by attaching the other end of the Ezi bleed to the tyre. If the level drops significantly refill the header tank.

 

Undo the bleed screw on the radiator outlet pipe. Its under the N / S front wheel arch liner. You can get at it by peeling back the wheel arch liner. You may want to remove this first to make it easier though. Tighten the bleed screw when water comes out. Dont undo it too far.

 

Slowly undo the bleed screw on the engine coolant rail till water comes out as well.

 

Remove the Ezi bleed at this point. With the header tank cap removed start and run the engine at idle till the temperature guage reads 60 - 65. Increase engine speed to about 2000 rpm. If you watch the temp guage as it rises you should notice the temp drop back as the thermostat opens. With mine it was at about 85 but i expect they all vary slightly. After its done this twice, rebleed at the radiator bleed screw with the engine still running.

 

Continue to run the engine at 2000 rpm till the radiator return pipe feels hot. At this point replace the header cap. Run the engine at 2000 rpm till the fan cuts in. Let the engine and coolant cool fully and top the tank up to the normal level. I top mine up to just before the min mark.

 

Dont forget to pump the tyre back up. Hope this is of some use.

 

This has always worked well for me HTH