FE-FC Holden Discussion Forum

Hi guys, didnt know where to put this one so it went here.

When I first got my car, I was told it had not been run for over 3yrs. When I drained the radiator of water, I used the bung at the bottom of the radiator and also screwed in the bung on the block, the only thing is, no water came out of the bung on the block. I thought ok, need to pull that out, probably something blocking it. Today I finally got around to pulling the whole bung out of the block while the rad was full, still no water, so I poked a screw driver in there and wiggled it about. when I pulled it out, covered in gray mud looking sludge.

I got a piece of wire and with that and the screw scraped as much crap out of the hole that I could, still no water(yes radiator cap was off) So, off to supacheap, one bottle of Wynns rad flush. Ran that stuff for about 20mins, still no water...

So now I am stuck as to what to do. It appears that the whole area around that bung is blocked up with sludge so most likely alot of the water jacket is blocked up. I haven't yet hooked up a water temp gauge and I haven't driven it further than around the block so I don't really know how hot its going to get. I do get water flow from the thermostat, can see the water moving with the cap off.

Any pointers? tips? old skool tricks? I am tempted to blow some compressed air in the bung, but I want the crap out, no further in.

Cheers

Fairly common problem, I have used wire to gradually free up the sludge - I can't see a problem with blowing compressed air into the hole, You really need to get this area of the block free of sludge, but you most likely will have to take out all the welsh plugs as well because the sludge generally settles right around the bottom of the water gallery.
It tends to get into a bigger and bigger job the further you go. Once you take out the welsh plugs on the pass side then you think you should take out the drivers side as well. Then it becomes very difficult to stop a little bit of water going into the oil, so then an oil change has to be done. Try not to let any water remain in the lifter bodies as this will contaminate the new oil.

Ken

Hi oggz
           another thing to check while your at it is, if you can see water circulating in the radiator as soon as you start the engine someone may have removed the thermostate on you which may be possible if youve got a block full of sludge causing some over heating problem

thanks for the advice, It has a thermostat in it, could see it when I replaced the hoses. no over heating issues yet, but would rather get this cleared up before that even happens.

I have been blowing air in the bung and its been bubbling at the radiator, been dropping all the water out buy taking the lower hose of and pushing water in through the water pump...took her for a few laps around the block with the bung out...all we got was a few drips of water....there must be a scary amount of sludge in there.

One of my neighbors reckons I should pull the welch plug above the starter...not sure I want to do that just yet. I may yet just drive her till either something happens or weekly flushes with radiator flush manages to free it up.