VW Heating and Steaming issues front and back.

[brianh]

Cheers

Actually we did remove the wheelarch and tested the water flow which looked OK then. Never the less I will remove them again, and clean the drains with compressed air.

Any other possibility of puddles? 

For e.g.: my mate commented that the scuttle may have been improperly installed by Autoglass, and the water may have seeped via the "rubber bead" which is around the scuttle area. I am not referring to the windscreen bead, but there is another softer bead in the scuttle area.

Its certainly possible the seal either wasn't on properly as it can come off the bit of metal it sits on, its also possible to get the scuttle back in place without it being located properly on the brackets that hold it against the seal.

Wouldn't expect a windscreen seal to be the problem unless you could find a water leak caused by it, though you may find something once the dashboard is out to do the matrix.

[yeshu26]

Update.


1: Took 2 hours to clean the mess. Picture only shows some part of the nightmare.

2: Found a "foam bunge" in original "VW perforated" packaging in the area shown with red arrow. Deliberate design or a mistake? I think a mistake, if VW was intending to block this channel/passage then they would have properly installed something, me thinks!. Also notice the wet acoustic sealing in the firewall area. Pollen filter was wet as a duck.

3: After ..rting about for 7 hours in total fitted the new heater, only to find leakage from the pipe area. (EIS Europarts, since the NRF was too large on the sides). Thoughts?

[Chrispb]

The foam bung must be standard, I have them also

[yeshu26]

The foam bung must be standard, I have them also

But why?

[yeshu26]

3: After ..rting about for 7 hours in total fitted the new heater, only to find leakage from the pipe area. (EIS Europarts, since the NRF was too large on the sides). Thoughts?

Any ideas on why this is leaking and how to stop it?. Opened, refitted and tightened properly already.

[Chrispb]

Don't know why it's there but would guess it has sound deadening properties.

As for the leak can only suggest one or other components are not a perfect fit or may be cracked/split, have you tried assembling with a sealer.

[brianh]

There should be two o rings in the kit, it may be that one of those hasn't gone in as well as it should have done when you assembled it or has some damage, from memory we had to assemble it in situ as such to avoid taking too much apart, I think we trimmed off bits from the top of the heater box to make it fit, then stuck the pipes through the bulkhead and bolted it together with a screwdriver poked through around the foam bit.

Either way, as your well aware that matrix is clearly the cause of your issue as it looks in a similar state to the one I replaced in mine so at least you know what the issue is for sure now.

[johnnyroper]

As above I would suggest the o rings havenââ,¬â,,¢t seated properly,when I did mine I used some rtv when assembling as didnââ,¬â,,¢t want to do the job again.

Have you split the joint again and had a look?

I also remember doing some trimming of the heater box as even with it loose and levered away from bulkhead it was a pain to slide it in.

[yeshu26]

Ok folks. Job done, just used different O rings. Time to have strong words with NRF wrt returns ( their re-seller confirmed in writing that it was the correct size).

Coolant level unstable, possibly due to an airlock in the system. So far I have just used 3.2 litres of a 5 litre bottle.
Rear heater is icecold yet again, I will investigate that separately once the airlock is gone.

[yeshu26]

There should be two o rings in the kit, it may be that one of those hasn't gone in as well as it should have done when you assembled it or has some damage, from memory we had to assemble it in situ as such to avoid taking too much apart, I think we trimmed off bits from the top of the heater box to make it fit, then stuck the pipes through the bulkhead and bolted it together with a screwdriver poked through around the foam bit.

Either way, as your well aware that matrix is clearly the cause of your issue as it looks in a similar state to the one I replaced in mine so at least you know what the issue is for sure now.

Cheers Brian, that was filthy broken matrix which came out. Its a PIA job to be honest, and no wonder no garage wants to undertake it.

[brianh]

I think what must happen is a lot of the antifreeze boils off on the outside of the matrix, leaving a sticky mess - its not something you'd usually expect to need to do, mine was down to excessive pressure in the cooling system (faulty lpg vapouriser leaking gas into the coolant) but not helped by age either. Bleeding should settle down, I flushed mine out as far as possible with the hosepipe when doing it as it had had the dreaded radweld put in to try and stop the leaking previously, that appeared to make bleeding much less of a problem.

[johnnyroper]

Ok folks. Job done, just used different O rings. Time to have strong words with NRF wrt returns ( their re-seller confirmed in writing that it was the correct size).

Coolant level unstable, possibly due to an airlock in the system. So far I have just used 3.2 litres of a 5 litre bottle.
Rear heater is icecold yet again, I will investigate that separately once the airlock is gone.

Once you have it all bled through the level will stabilise and rear heater will get hot again,as you know from previously they can be a pain to bleed

[yeshu26]

Update lads:

Heating getting better, although there is a weird "new metal" kind of burning smell. Not sure how to describe it, but imagine a new boiler or radiator's smell.

Rear heating getting better too.

[johnnyroper]

That will be your new heater matrix,it will smell for a while mine did after I replaced it.