Thread: 300tdi coolant overflow and no coolant in radiator

I'd say gasket and or head as well, without the cap on it will overflow so part is normal. If once up to temp you can hear bubbly and the rad hoses go rock hard then you have head problems.

After fiddling around all sunday and having the defender run (must admit it was only really idling) for well over an hour and having a mate who is a mechanic look at it, we were both fairly confident it wasnt the head gasket and just a stubborn air pocket.

It wasnt overheating at all and i thought that we finally had the system working well. I drove probably 50km and had no issues, checked the coolant the next morning and a 1/4 of what was in the expansion tank bubbled down into the cooling system. Thinking this was just another little bit of air escaping i topped it back up and drove to work, no problems.

Was heading up to uni after work and was on the highway for about 25km, temperature started creeping up and heater went cold.

I pulled over asap and in the moment wasnt sure if i should switch off or not, the temp kept climbing and was heading for 100degrees, at this stage i didnt think there was much coolant in the system so i turned it off.

Temp kept going up and i think peaked at about 105, i tried topping up coolant and squeezing hoses to circulate the coolant.
It cooled down reasonably fast.

I wasnt in a good/safe spot and was in a hurry so had to move it and with more coolant in and the temp down to 70deg and no water in oil or oil in water, i thought i would have to see if it would turn over.

At first it wouldnt start (may have been a separate battery issue, unsure) but then it fired and sounded fine, drove fine around the corner but when i pulled up i saw the white smoke go past.

Pretty gutted at the time, mainly because i had originally suspected it was the head gasket but after sunday thought otherwise and up until now it hasnt been anywhere near 100degrees so i have possibly done further damage.

Anyway, got it home on a trailer late last night and now waiting for a spot in the parents garage and some time so i can the fun can begin

Jimmy