A unhealthy cooling system + yellow residue

Apothus · Post by **Apothus** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 11:44 am

Hi, surprisingly I'm posting in here for some advice!

My '95 GPX fto is having some cooling issues. A few weeks back it overheated and blew a Heater hose and my poor car had to limp home on the back of a tow truck. I have replaced the hose and thermostat with genuine new Mitsubishi ones and flushed the radiator system since then but i am still having some cooling issues.

-No matter how much i flush the system i still get a little brown pasty residue at the top of the filling cap.
-the Temp gauge occasionally shows 50% above average yet when i stop the car and let it cool for <1 minute it drops back to normal
- Constantly toping up coolant, does not appear as though overflow tank is returning. this stops over heating issue for a few days
- the most concerning thing is a yellow powdery residue almost like pollen forming around the end of the overflow hose near the radiator cap
- Often finding some of that brown sludge in the overflow piping too and the overflow tank is actually stained from whatever this stuff is
- have already replace radiator cap a year ago (90) when i got the car, old radiator hoses (replaced 6months ago) were collapsing with vacuum when engine had cooled.

*im looking for any advice on what this brown sludge may be and how to get rid of it
* what on earth this yellow powder is
* what else this could indicate about my cooling system

Aren't import cars fun!

Thanks in Advance

nikhan · Post by **nikhan** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 12:21 pm

Hmmm...is your radiator fan working?

Apothus · Post by **Apothus** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 12:44 pm

nikhan wrote:Hmmm...is your radiator fan working?

I haven't really investigated this, has anyone experienced an intermittent fan fault before?
Is the fan controlled by a thermo switch or some other method?

Post by **Bennoz** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:19 pm

Nasty brown sludge is a mixture of oil & water - which means you've got a blown head gasket.

Pull your intake manifold off, then the rocker covers on both heads. You'll soon see which head has the blow in it, there'll be more of that fun sludge all over it.

khunjeng · Post by **khunjeng** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:59 pm

u've HG'd it

poor u...hope no other damage was done whe it overheated...

take it to get fixed if u cant do it urself.

FTEvolution · Post by **FTEvolution** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 2:36 pm

I feel sorry for you ya poor bastard (well soon to be poor if you can't fix it yourself).

She aint the easiest of jobs to do, just pray to my car gods that you haven't done any more damage when the HG went

mr-charisma · Post by **mr-charisma** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 2:40 pm

Ben's nailed it..

Blown head gasket - not fun at all.. Mechanics for you methinks

Post by **BorepYano** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:33 pm

the yellow powder stuff is the brown sludge stuff dried out. the brown sludge stuff as ben said is water mixing with oil from a blown head gasket.
one guess where that water came from/where your coolant has been disappearing to. hence why you have to keep topping up the water. that's why you are over heating..

so blown head gasket is the root of all your evils.

mr-charisma · Post by **mr-charisma** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:49 pm

nice 1 yang.. you had some experience with HG failure then?

Apothus · Post by **Apothus** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 8:09 pm

Of all the things you don't want to hear!

It has been like this for a very long time though infact probably since i have had the car (just over a year). Its been reliable and i have not had cloudy oil during changes a sign i was aware of. Is it possible this sludge is a leftover sediment from a previously blown head gasket? somehow mixing from some sediment in the bowels of the cooling system?

Upon speaking to some mates from uni during they day they thought that the "pollen" could be something to do with the coolant i am using. I have been using techtaloy gold (green). Apparently this does not particularly like being exposed to the atmosphere.

I may just be in denial, lol.

AMACHA · Post by **AMACHA** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:03 am

Apothus wrote:Of all the things you don't want to hear!

It has been like this for a very long time though infact probably since i have had the car (just over a year). Its been reliable and i have not had cloudy oil during changes a sign i was aware of. Is it possible this sludge is a leftover sediment from a previously blown head gasket? somehow mixing from some sediment in the bowels of the cooling system?

Upon speaking to some mates from uni during they day they thought that the "pollen" could be something to do with the coolant i am using. I have been using techtaloy gold (green). Apparently this does not particularly like being exposed to the atmosphere.

I may just be in denial, lol.

if your in meblourne im in the cbd at rmit every day so if u want come show me the car and ill tell u exactly what is wrong with it.

Apothus · Post by **Apothus** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:01 am

AMACHA wrote:
Apothus wrote:Of all the things you don't want to hear!

It has been like this for a very long time though infact probably since i have had the car (just over a year). Its been reliable and i have not had cloudy oil during changes a sign i was aware of. Is it possible this sludge is a leftover sediment from a previously blown head gasket? somehow mixing from some sediment in the bowels of the cooling system?

Upon speaking to some mates from uni during they day they thought that the "pollen" could be something to do with the coolant i am using. I have been using techtaloy gold (green). Apparently this does not particularly like being exposed to the atmosphere.

I may just be in denial, lol.
if your in meblourne im in the cbd at rmit every day so if you want come show me the car and ill tell you exactly what is wrong with it.

thanks for the offer but im all the way over in Perth. I have a mate who has a co2 sniffer kit so ill test it with that tomorrow hopefully.

FTO AUSTRALIA

A unhealthy cooling system + yellow residue

A unhealthy cooling system + yellow residue

damn!

Re: damn!

Re: damn!