Quote:Number one cause: a blown head gasket. And it is quite easy to test, just perform, or have a shop perform a compression test.

if it's spurting with force, that's abnormal. if it just dribbles out then it's overfilled.

radiator filling can be maddening and a good way to blow head gaskets.


fill the radiator to about 1/4" above the tubes, just cover them, don't submerge them completely. close cap. warm up car, put 1/2 of the amount the overflow holds and let the car warm up a little, the overflow will blow a few little bubbles. let the engine cool down, it will suck in coolant. if the overflow gets low add a little to keep some liquid in the bottle.

I agree w/ ddgonzal, a blown head gasket will push water out of system and still not put any in the oil. A pressure check of your cooling system will tell alot. also if this is the problem, be sure to remove the spark plugs befor trying to start the veh. cuz' you can bend a rod with hydrolock if the cylinder gets full of water.

I Have done a pressure check of the cooling system and it holds pressure. Also took some plugs out and they were not covered in coolant!

Im leaning towards a blown head gasket but still not sure! Il do a compression test today!

The cooling system is under 5-14 pounds of pressure. The cylinders are under (?) 1,000 pounds or something like that. So you are far more likely to get cylinder pressure into the cooling system than you are to get water into the oil. Often they go together, but not always ...

A12s are tough to fill as mentioned, so I suggest never change the coolant haha. It will usually burp sometime later that day or the next day and then overheat if you are not watching the temperature gauge. They don't have an effective engine bleed like some cars have.

Well I have bled the system again and will drive the car today to see what happends!

I have taken the overflow bottle away as it is not sucking it back up anyway! See what happends! Il keep everyone informed!

there are 2 kinds of rad. cap, open and closed,(one has 2 gaskets the other only one ) a closed system cap will suck back from the bottle, and an open sytem is made to exit only. did you test the cap also? more than likely, if you could perform a "leakdowm test" it wiould show a head gasket leak. one my A-14, I had a gasket "trying to blow" and the only sign was it ran at 200 instead of 190 degrees (farenheit) but when I removed the oil filler cap to look for oil shake, it had moisture on the underside of the cap. I replaced the gasket and it solved the heat issue. Quote:

originally had a cap that leaked! This has been replaced with the sought that sucks collant back in!

Ok, drove the car today and it did not overheat! When I got home, i let the car cool down, opened radiator cap and found that coolant was just covering fins of radiator, there was some coolant missing????

Did not add anymore coolant and started the car again with radiator cap off! Found that after the thermostat had opened, coolant level rose and kept rising untill it began to splurt out of the top of the radiator! I almost want to put a clip of it on the website!

Any ideas on what is causing it?????

that sounds like what it should be doing.... it will never be 100% full. i would say you would only have a problem if it lost more coolant after it decreased below this level