hey guys im having some pretty bad problems with my cooling system at the moment.
driving from work to home, in the arvo in about 32 degree heat today and previous days my car gets almost to the H on the old school smiths guage.
What can i do to make my car run cooler?
i have to wait to get paid until the 30th til i can spend any amounts of money over $50, and i only have work for one more day so i can afford having the car off the road for a while.
im thinking of:
replacing thermostat
replacing water pump
flushing radiator
and if all that fails fitting an auxillary radiator (commodore heater core).

Are there more common things than the other? coz if i can isolate the problem without spending money and just spend it on the one thing it would be much better.
any methods to check if stuff is alright without removing everything completely?
i also run a thermo fan and even with that on it really doesnt make a big difference once the temperature rises past 6 o'clock on the guage it seems unstoppable.
i dont have a overflow bottle coz it fell out of its bracket and onto the extractors, so i need to get one of them so i can use coolant again (the coolant has just pissed out of the overflow and has been subsituted by top up tap water)
help

how long have the things you just said been last looked at
i think those things are sufficient to keep your car cool

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Well for a start, put the coolant back in...it raises the boiling point.

Is the thermo fan blowing into the radiator cowling??

Is the guage reading correctly?.....when you stop....do you see lots of overflow??

replacing thermostat - how old is it? just check its operation....
replacing water pump - why? how old is it?
flushing radiator - well you have been doing that slowly topping up the water!!
and if all that fails fitting an auxillary radiator .....shoudn't need it unless yer engine is highly mortified!!!

Doc.......

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"Show me the Mini!"

First thing I would do if the coolant is pissing out, is make sure you have the right radiator cap fitted! Often if you get one from repco or some place like that they give you the wrong one, some have a longer neck, so make sure your cap is sealing on the radiator lip. This recently fixed a cooling problem I was having completely, and I havent lost a drop since in over a month. Is there any oil in the water? Many minis dont ahve an over flow tank just an overflow hose.
Hope this helps, and its cheap aswell if it is the problem.

I'd say moon man hit it on the head, if you were running an overflow tank you need to replace it or fit a different cap.

A minis cooling system ususally runs on the priciple of: Cold air goes IN thru the grille, and OUT thru the radiator.

Flip fronts always run hotter - there are more gaps for the fresh air to exit from, without going thru the radiator.

I think you WILL benefit from a front mount or auxillary radiator, as long as the other variables (eg: mooman and doc) are all correct.

My flippy ran hot too.

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[NATHAN] -- Sold everything mini related and am back in big beautiful BMWs

This sounds like an interesting topic,

As i am having some lose of water, seem to find myself filling the radiator up every couple of days with about roughly 2-4 cups of water depending on the temp outside.

get a high flow water pump - the impeller is double the size

auxilliary radiator plumbed into the heater offtake will only help when the car is moving - unless you put a fan on that too - when moving it works really well, on 35 deg days my fan runs at 1/3 when moving, and 2/3 when sitting in traffic with the fan turned on

make sure your elec fan is sealed around the outside of it so the air can only go through the rad - do you still have the engine fan? I ditched mine and don't miss it one bit

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