Hot Engine

[jamesdarlington]

Hi again people, I dont know how normal this is but I have a 1.4 carb engine in my nova with no mods to the engine and for some reason EVERY time i go out for long enough the engine temp always gets to half way mark when fan kicks in then same occurance a few minutes later, is this normal or is my engine about to blow! When i brought th car (back in december now) the bonnet which is red had faded quite a lot and since then it has been resprayed and everything looks fine now its just i dont want the lovely respray to go all faded or bubble or anything like that. Any replies would be appreciated Thanks
Seeya

[CP]

Sounds normal to me. As it warms up you shud see the temp gauge increase then fall back a bit as the thermostat opens. The temp gauge shud then build again to around half way. If you are travelling and its cool the fan probably won't kick in at all. If however you slow say queueing in traffic and its warm the fan will start to kick in and out. So long as the gauge doesn't rise above say the 3/4 mark then its not overheating. If it gets hot chances are it'll boil up and lose water out the head tank cap before you are about to wreck the engine or anything. :)

[rob.slader]

My 1400sr does exactly the same, the temperature gauge gets just over 1/2 way and the fan kicks in. I also have a problem of bonnet paint fade in the centre due to heat, but it's not because the engine is boiling over, it's just the heat produced that causes it. You should check you water bottle when the fan comes on, check it's not bubbling. Have you got antifreeze in it? Just because it's summer (well supposedly) doesn't mean you don't need antifreeze as it also acts as engine coolant. The next step would be to get some sound-proofing for the bonnet. This was standard only on the turbo diesel and gsi models I think. Try getting it from a breakers as it's well over ?100 new from Vauxhall.

[jamesdarlington]

Ok thanks lads cheers for that! :D