'Stat Housing

[Fury1630]

I went under the Fury last weekend to measure up for an alloy panel & noticed the starter motor was dripping. Clambering top-side I found coolant dribbling from the welded seam around the thermostat housing - looks like I was lucky to get home from France.

It seems it's a known fault on Zetecs, so I've bought an alloy one off an early silvertop (£££££). It arrived without the rad-fan switch, so had a hole, I was just going to plug it & bought it into work this morning to measure the thread & as will happen a conversation happened which resulted in the housing now being in the machine shop getting the top flattened off so I'll be able to fit a plug, a hose take-off or a temp switch as required.

But the point of the post is, it might be worth checking your plastic 'stat housing before a long run. If you look at the back of the engine, look for the lowest of three bolts holding the housing on, there's a seam sort of kinks round that bolt head. Mine was leaking from there.

[David T]

Thanks for the warning.

I think there are three types:

1. Old alloy
2. Bakerlite type from silver top
3. Cheap plastic type from black top

I changed from 3 to 2 to get the sensor holes. I did manage to write one off though when overtightening the sensor - very easy to split the bakerlite.

[David T]

Thanks for the warning.

I think there are three types:

1. Old alloy
2. Bakerlite type from silver top
3. Cheap plastic type from black top

I changed from 3 to 2 to get the sensor holes. I did manage to write one off though when overtightening the sensor - very easy to split the bakerlite.

There was somebody on the web making billet CNC ones - works of art, but about £300 I think!!!

[graham b]

I "did" for three of these before getting a raceline water.rail

[Fury1630]

I "did" for three of these before getting a raceline water rail

I have no structure anywhere near it, it was just a heat-cycling / plastic aging problem. The alloy one felt expensive, bit still only 1/5 the price of a water rail & it'll cure the problem (can't make the smilies work)

[SteveRST]

I've bought an alloy one off an early silvertop (£££££)

Was watching one of these on ebay earlier in the week. Went for 40-odd quid. Was that you then?

[Fury1630]

I've bought an alloy one off an early silvertop (£££££)

Was watching one of these on ebay earlier in the week. Went for 40-odd quid. Was that you then?

It was indeed, a lot of money for an old lump of alloy, but I looked at it as £40 to solve the problem. The dodgy ones are £90 from Ford, £12 from Ebay, so how good are the Ebay ones?

[andyf]

I had the same problem with my wife's KA except it was the heater control valve. In that case it disintergrated! I don't think they did the proper materials analysis before going plastic

[Fury1630]

On the way home from work I called into Margnor & picked up three stainless cap head bolts & washers to hold the cap onto the body & an M16 x 1.5 tapered grub screw to seal the hole in the top. Unfortunately the grub screw didn’t quite seal, after ten minutes running it had just filled the hex socket, good, but not good enough - it must've been leaking atom by atom. So back to the excellent Margnor where they produced a “cylindrical plug” which when used in conjunction with a soft copper washer onto my new machined flat face – sealed. Yay!

So another plastic part is replaced by a nice shiny alloy one & the car's got a little bit better. At some point I'll swap the plug for a rad fan switch, there's one in the radiator at the moment. Monitoring the temperature of the coolant in the radiator makes no sense to me, it's the temperature of the engine that's important.

[Matth93]

It's good to see you've got it sorted and improved it aswell