What's Leaking?

[Austin-Rover]

Currently, the cooling fan on the radiator in my car is broken, so it will only work if if the two wires are joined by a fuse. This means that the fan is either on permenantly or it is off and will not work at all if i remove the fuse. For the sake of this story, the fan was disconnected allowing me to work on the car with the ignition on, but the engine not started. (so as not to waste the battery).

This morning i had the car running for a while while i was working on other things outside. When i checked inside the car, i noticed the temperature warning light flashing! I looked under the bonnet to see i had not connected the fan up. D'oh! I turned the engine off and noticed a leak of a gold coloured liquid into the passenger footwell under the dashboard. It had a horrible rotten fish smell. What was it - and what have i broken?

Help!

:(

[H48HPE]

there is absolutly no doubt about this, you have overheated the engine and caused a massive pressure in the cooling system and this has escaped through the heater matrix or the gasket that joins it to the pipes. this is by the sound of it a big hole and therefore you probably need a new matrix. this is unfortunatly a take the dashboard off job.

[Austin-Rover]

Been back out to check the car now the engine is cold. Since i have left the car, the leak has stopped. The area where the leak was coming from was the two metal pipes under the dash on the passenger side that lead into the engine bay and become the pipes connected to the radiator etc.

:(

[tony]

you my be very lucky with that, as in it my just be leaking on the joint with the excess pressure, get that switch mended before its too late:)

[MaestroMatt]

That is exactly the problem I have with my heater matrix - one of the pipes that comes in through the bulkhead was leaking from under a rubber grommet. I tightened a jubilee clip extremely hard over the grommet and it hasn't shown a trace of leakage since. If you are lucky, as Tony says, it may be a one-off due to the high pressure. If you have an R series (could well be the same for any other engine), then the part you need is called a flange and consists of two pipes mounted on a bit of metal for which Rover will (over)charge £30 ish. Replace your expansion cap as it may not be venting at high-presure. You could even consider replacing with a 10psi instead of 15 just to be on the safe side.