Changed thermostat now no heat.

[Wiljones71]

Hello all.
I have a 2006 1.4 berlingo.
About a month ago I added some steel seal into the radiator tank to see if it would stop a oil leak (common on this engine) that was found during its mot , this did not work.
Also when the van is running on idle the temperature rises but does not go all the way to the red. thermostat I was thinking.

Today I emptied the coolant and replaced the thermostat to see if it would fix the overheating. When I put it back together and started to poor fresh coolant into the tank it was not feeding into the radiator, took the radiator/overflow pipe off and found that it was blocked solid with some kind of tarry sludge. managed to unblock the pipe and refitted. got about 1 1/2 litre approx coolant into the rad then it stopped again.

Ran the engine to get to temp tried to bleed the system but nothing seems to happen, 

ran out of daylight in the end, 

Is there anything that you guys can recommend me doing to diagnose the fault? has the steel seal gummed up the whole cooling system of my van.

Shes an old girl which I am quite attached to I'm hoping I have not killed her with adding the steel seal.

One other question, the heater direction dial wont budge in the van and is stuck on the middle vents, any ideas on a fix for this.

Thank you all in advance.

Wil.

[oilyrag]

Hi Wil,  in the absence of anyone more knowledgeable I'll give it a try.  The cooling system can be a pig to fill and it sounds as though yours may be all the worse from the sealant. 
If you have the bleed point at the bulkhead where the heater pipes connect - looks like a tyre valve. Take the cap off and connect a piece of tubing - clear sort from an ironmongers - prob around 6mm bore, 1m long - and loop it upwards and then back into the header tank.   
Run the engine at tickover and if you are lucky some trapped air will bubble out of the tube - on mine the bleed is on the 'return'/suction side of the water pump, so revving sucks water into the system via the tube (and if the free end is not submerged in the header tank it will suck in air).
Keep on topping up the header tank all the while.
Good luck!

[Wiljones71]

Thank you, will give it a try.

[bobothegreat]

I had this temperature problem on my mk1 multispace, took it to a my mechanic but he couldn't find anything, long story short, I missed a service (oil change, oil filter, air filter, fuel filter etc) and the temp returned to normal, bit overkill but my dw8 engine gets an oil change every 5k miles and she never misses a beat and temperature never breaches halfway mark

[Gadgetman]

Okay...
first off, you're car's a M59, not an M49.(M49 is the 're facelift' with narrow headlights, 1996 - 2003), and old?
Mine's a real M49, and 1999 model.

Never EVER use those 'miracle cures' on a proper engine like the TU3. It's a miracle if it works afterwards!

There are 3 bleed points you should be aware of.
1. Heater matrix, at the firewall(which has already been mentioned)
2. Bleed screw at the thermostat housing.
3. Black plastic screw on top of the radiator, where the top hose enters.

Also, the top of the engine cooling loop is above the height of the thermostat housing and bleed screw.
Park your car on an incline, or go to town on it with a good jack. You want to lift the lefthand side front corner of the carr as high as possible to get rid of all the trapped air.

If the sludge is like peanut butter, your head gasket wants a vacation.

I was unaware that this model engine has a tendency to leak all that much.
90% of the time, when a mechanicc says that it just means he overtightened a bolt, stripped the threads in the casing, and doesn't want to admit that he broke it.

Common reasons for oil leaks are worn out seals or bad gaskets. It's just that some can be very difficult to get to without pulling the engine, and THAT is a pain in the posterior to do!
you can swap both the head gasket and the sump oil seal without too much trouble, with the engine still in the car. But the Crankshaft oil seal... nope. It's easier to pull the engine with the gearbox, than to pull just the gearbox so that you can get to the flywheel that the durn old oilseal is hiding behind.

[Sol]

I've moved the thread to the correct section (M59) and left a redirect in place for 7 days so people following can catch up.

It may be worth taking the thermostat out, button it up again but leave one hose off and using a garden hose neatly connected to that one hose with rags / tape / whatever you can find to make a seal of sorts, run water though it for a while to try and push all the sludge out.