Originally Posted by bydand

Your are further ahead than I am, My thermostat housing has been delivered to the UK, which is unfortunate since I am in SA. San Antonio or South America???

Both my Audi A4 and Volvo XC 70 had some oil carry over on the air manifold side when opening. I asked one of the Jag techs, he said it was normal to see that amount of oil in the plenum.

If you have no sludge waxy deposits in the take off hoses from the cam covers, and depending on what oil you are using. I don't think this is an issue.

I suspect you have been running hot so it will have thrown up more than usual oil mist. Are you running fully synthetic? I am running fully synthetic, Valvoline. The engine did overheat twice, both times the temp reached 265f (via Bluetooth OBD), I'm hoping that didn't do permanent damage..

Any long freeway miles, spirited driving (hard not to) Just before stopping for R&R? All the time!!!

Is you oil consumption minimal between oil changes, leaks excluded? I've never had to add oil between changes and I will stretch them out to 12-13k.

If so I would not worry, its just carry over.

Venting the cooling system.

Topped off the expansion tank, my car was on ramps so the nose was up, see Cnt comments in the posts above.

Have a good look around for leaks all the time you are doing this venting, topping off.

Bring it up to normal temp at tick over, and keep an eye on the expansion tank with the cap off and bleed screw on the expansion tank loose.

Top back up to normal level and refit expansion tank cap. This should pressure up the system and some air will bleed off from the vent screw.

Then rev the engine lightly, max is only 4K.

When you have liquid coolant coming from the bleed screw on the expansion tank close it.

Take for a test drive, I live on a hill, so monitoring temperatures and hi temp low coolant level etc have a little drive. This vented more air out the system.

I put another two litres in when I came back after about 1 km. and bled the bleed screw again.

I will leave you to decide what and when to add the coolant to the water.

There is a drain valve on the left side of the radiator, your drivers side. I changed my coolant out completely, and will have to again now.

Montior the levels and coolant temperatures while your driving there after until you feel confident, all the air has gone from the system.

With may OBD reader half way on the coolant thermometer gauge was about 92deg C, getting hot and over 97 to 105 deg C. It appears to be doing fine, no leaks so far. I added coolant slowly with the bleed screw off, seems to have done the trick. Temp never got above 206 in Dallas traffic this evening.

regards- thank you for all the help!


Bydand

Originally Posted by wardo5757

One more question:
I bought the jag coolant, is it supposed to be mixed with water? I hope so!

I would not be so presumptuous as to comment without reading the label on the coolant bottle. It may be pre mixed with water, it may not.


Edit:
I also want to add, I decided to put in a new water pump while I had everything apart. I called Jag, the wanted $105 so I called NAPA, they wanted $116 for what they claimed is an OE part, I told them Jag was less and they gave it to me for $99. Got home, the NAPA part had a super cheap paper gasket and the Jag had robust rubber coated metal one. Needless to say I brought the NAPA one back and got the OE.

well spotted, there was another post on repeat failures of this paper joint at the water pump.



$65 for the coolant, pump = $105 and the thermostat housing was $157, I would assume bluebook on that job would be about 4 hours, so it pays to do yourself...