smokey from bonnet urgent

[chrisandrewc]

whats the little bottle next to orange one for ?

 

[claude]

When I first started working on cars over 40 years ago we rarely access to workshop manuals and generally couldn't afford one anyway. Youngsters in those days gained virtually all their mechanical knowledge from asking their dad, someone else's dad or other friends in the neighborhood. That's how it worked and how we learnt - then most men and a few women too maintained their own vehicles and at a weekend you could find any number of cars with their bonnets open and their owners dutifully keeping them in good working order. The problem is today that there are so few people now who have any idea about basic car mechanics and I feel for any novice who's trying to get to grips with the practical aspects of becoming a good amateur mechanic - so yes, ask away and better still if you can find someone who knows their way around a car- stick with them.

 

[chrisandrewc]

thanks claude can u tell me what the left hand bottle is for and what the controller picture controls are for is top the heater and bottom vent ? is that position in pic on or off ?

 

[claude]

Hi chrisandrewwc

Ok the radiator expansion bottle is the oval looking bottle on the right of the picture with the orange coolant fluid in it. It has a minimum/maximum level and a pipe running from the bottom to the top of the radiator. The other square container on the left is the windscreen washer bottle - these can vary in design according to year of manufacture, the later ones were electrically operated (as in the picture) although some earlier models like mine had a manual pump so are slightly different, I think some of the very early models didn't have one at all, although I stand to be corrected on that. Anyway I hope you can now identify your coolant/expansion bottle and windscreen washer reservoir .

If your model is similar to mine, a left hand drive, you should have two small levers: one on each side of the heater unit. The lever, on the left, closest to you operates a shutter that diverts the flow of warm air either into the cabin or onto the windscreen to demist it. In the down position it diverts air into the cabin and in the up position onto the windscreen. The lever, on the right, furthest away from you controls the temperature. In the down position it shuts the valve to the heater matrix hence cutting off the flow of hot coolant. In the up position it's fully open and allows the maximum flow of hot coolant through the system. The matrix acts as a heat exchanger and the electric fan blows hot air into the car. Some R4's had up:down arrows to show the min:max position and some like mine had a blue spot at the bottom position of the lever and a red one at the top. If your heater unit is leaking or blowing steam out at you, it is likely to be (a) a split pipe in the matrix itself or (b) a split in the rubber inlet/ outlet pipes attached to the matrix . Of course to mend it properly you'll have to drain the entire cooling system first and then refill after having made the necessary repair, which will mean bleeding the system to get all the air locks out (as previously described) never refill with just water, always use a good quality antifreeze:coolant as this serves not only as an anti freezing agent but also acts as a rust inhibitor protecting all those tiny water channels running around the engine block. Finally never mix orange and blue antifreezes together as I once did in ignorance - turned into a gooey gel and took forever to flush out the system - hope this helps Claude.