Rover 200Vii Fan fix 

they do have a good size fuse box!

@@furiousdriving Yeah but its kind of domed and easy to spill when working in the bay. Better than nothing though I guess.

love those jobs!

Now that it is properly repaired you can use it during the week! Do you know what the mpg is?

no, but it didnt use much going to Yorkshire

NOTE :~ Despite what some areas of the Motoring Media would have you believe, cylinder head gaskets rarely actually fail. On any car. Invariably they are first damaged by excess heat ( cooling issues ) thus no longer able to do the job they are designed for. Looks like Matt's 200vi is a perfect demonstration of that. Cooling issues = damaged Head Gasket. Thus it is essential to identify the cause of the over heating and rectify that otherwise cue ... "Repeat failure mate. They all do that. Well known fact in the trade"... Decades ago, driving away from a fast fit outfit with newly fitted rear tyres, one of the tyres on the front of my 620ti soon after lost pressure. There was a six inch nail high up on the tyre side wall! That tyre did not fail, it was damaged. I often wonder how that new six inch nail could become embedded so high up on a tyre side wall.. Hmmm...

In a healthy cooling system on most cars, as the coolant expands the system becomes pressurised well over atmospheric. That enables higher temperatures like 110c without any risk of boiling. Pressure cooker type of thing. Any leak in the cooling system. no matter how small. means that pressure is never reached and so coolant will boil over at lower temperatures.

My Vectra's rad fan never kicked in until around 105.. i believe some run hotter than other

leaky pipe!

these dont have AC, and are old enough not to have safety switches

As far as I'm aware, these clutch/brake switches are a recent thing to be implemented. I doubt that any 90s cars have them at all.

It was the dowels and gasket type, but affected all the sizes after that change

@@furiousdriving ok thanks for the reply. Its all a bit confusing the K series engine. Most of us are led to believe these engines are a dog yet it turns out the earlier K series engines are fine.

All K-Series can be reliable provided they are maintained and not neglected. That based on all those in my family over the last twenty nine years of K-Series ownership of both NEW and used cars. I have taken on a number of so called K-Series HG "failure " cars over the past two decades their previous owners have given up on following "They all do that mate" pro-advice. . Some still in the family fleet in reliable daily driver use well over ten years later. That includes my daily driver workhorse load carrier MG-ZT=T with the 1.8K in Turbocharged form. The last new car I bought was my wife's MG ZS 120 with 1.8K. Now approaching its twentieth birthday and over 112,000 reliable miles with at least four of the family driving it during that time. We do lift the bonnet and check things though as recommended by all car manufacturers, A near neighbour drives one of those big yellow Roadside Rescue Vans. He confirms many cars users do not even know where the bonnet release is on their cars. That says it all and is a prime reason why some car users are always "unlucky" with their cars. A friend asked me to check her Kia recently. She had been advised that her car's Alternator has failed and is not charging her battery. I took my Multi-Meter along and asking her to pull the bonnet release she had no idea how to do that. Took a few minutes to find the release lever and the safety catch to raise the bonnet. They were well hidden! That revealed TWO bucket fulls of dead Silver Birch leaves in the engine compartment. A real fire hazard! She parks the car under the Birch. There was nothing wrong with either her Battery or Alternator. Thus saving her well over a hundred quid for new Battery/Alternator as pro-recommended. I recommended she start and run the car at least once a week to maintain the battery and explained why she should do that. She like many modern car users had no idea about that.

@@T16MGJ Most people just want a consumable item without any maintenance needed. unfortunately cars are not like that. saying that I haven't checked the oil in my car for two months but its due a service on Monday so it should have an oil change (second service)

@@BillyNoMates1974 Very true. White Goods Mindsets now. Tyre pressures are a basic essential safety check far too many car users negelct to do. Cue... Kerrrrrrrunch ... Oh it did not do that yesterday. Anyway, my car passed the MoT eight months ago so why fix it if it aint broke.

it wasnt hot enough to turn it on

Sound advice there MM. Now past my eightieth, been there experienced that when fitting a tow bar to my ZT 260 last week. Getting old NOT recommended. Best to avoid .. :)

This is what I wondered about as mine is a 2 speed fan. I wonder if single speed fans have a shorter life?

@@Phiyedough there were 2 fuses for the cooling fans. I’m not sure what the difference was between them apart from one being a lot quieter.

@@themcbradderz4966 It seems the typical setup is to have 2 relays, 2 fuses and a resistor to reduce the fan speed. Not sure what activates the relays but above a certain temperature the low speed relay powers up and at a higher temperature the high speed relay operates, bypassing the resistor.

That could be because the CTS ( Coolant Temperature Sensor ) is no longer sensing correctly ... Also it is possible the CTS's electrical connection is not properly fitted fully home or damaged. Impatient types working on cars have been known to use the wires to pull off CTS and other spring clip fastened Connector Plugs. That could stress or even break electrical continuity. I have evidence of this. The TPS Connector on the Throttle Body is prone to suffer from such abuse. Seen that myself in the pro-environment. Some confuse speed with efficient servicing. It don't work like that. The car and their owners suffer. A check for fan operation on your Rover 25 or most other MGs/Rovers is to disconnect the Plug on the CTS with engine at idle. That should see the fan kick in immediately. Keep fingers away from fan blades. Those Fan Motors are powerful! Your continuous running fan could be a faulty CTS sending Hot Engine Readings to the ECU, Faulty or poorly fitted Plug on the CTS. easy checks for any half-decent DIYer. DESPITE what some would have us believe, it is not Rocket Science. Cue.. ALWAYS check the simple things first.

@@T16MGJ I did replace the CTS a couple months back because I thought it could have been causing some other engine issues at the time. But it changed nothing. I honestly don’t mind having a half functioning car it adds to its personality.

tea engine

@@furiousdriving The K series is known by some as "The Kettle!"

Good advice. I too noted a tad too casual with those leads from the battery. Back in my early car fettling days, a close friend working on a car with me had his watch strap welded to his flesh for an instant. Nasty. Cue .. BE CAREFUL. Car battery can be powerfully dangerous. An early lesson learned well at my friend's expense.

" car that ran fine on the motorway, overheated in town. " That in itself is a good clue. My car's fans rarely come on ( climate control excepted ) ever except during those long Motorway Traffic stop-start Hold Ups on a warm summers day.

Indeed, removing something from private property without asking/permission is theft as far as I'm aware! 🤔

@@tripemonger8916yes on the face of it, seems innocent enough but i would hate for matt to loose a car

not that specific

That would have been a hair raising reading to see!

110c / 130c !! A Diseasel with a hot engine! Now there's a thing .. :)

Yeah, some modern engines have an operating temperature at about 110 oC or so, but they still have the temp guage show 90 because that is what people are used to (so they don't freak out).

@@DashCamSerbia "Freaking out". ... That is true. So manufactures provided Hot~Cold gauges with the needle designed to be static about half way to cure the "freaking out" and panic visits to Service reception desks with their new cars ..Some of us would prefer greater accuracy. When I first started driving back in the middle ages now, most better spec cars had proper gauges which showed PSI and Degrees in graduation for Oil and Coolant readings. That meant when cruising at 100 mph + in my MG, if the twin needles in upper and lower half of the combined gauge for both Oil PSI and Coolant Readings I could see in my peripheral vision where the twin needles were reading at Ten past Six, I knew all was well. 100mph + quite legal back then on many UK Roads and Motorways. Even the Midland Red Bus company had TV adverts about higher cruising speeds legally on their London-Birmingham Shuttle inter-city services. I was doing 95 indicated on my Triumph Motor Cycle and a Midland Red Bus passed me greyhound style. Imagine that today.. No chance.

@@DashCamSerbia Indeed, or they dont feature gauges for any temps at all, as many (maybe even most) modern cars do. My BMW certainly doesnt have any gauges for coolant, and its far from new, though they were probably some of the earlier manufacturers to delete them, already in the early 00s. My readings are provided by aftermarket gauges that tap directly into the ECU.

If the coolant is about 50:50 and the cooling system is holding good pressure the boiling point is raised by about 10%. This why the engine suddenly boils over if the release the rad cap on a fully hot engine. Matt has a leak. If that persists the pressure will drop and lower the boiling point.

@@delukxy Spot On Diagnosis and advice. . Well said and folks unaware of this need to know that any leak in a cooling system, no matter how small, that essential expanded coolant pressure is never reached and that leads to serious cooling problems and over heating. Cue the poor old Head Gasket gets the blame for "failing" every time when in actual fact it is damaged from an excess of heat.

Ive heard of them, wont catch on

😂😂

I use a sheet of cardboard in front of the radiator to speed things up.

Above all.....