So, after months of being away in the Middle-East, I arrived home to find (somewhat unsurprisingly) that the car wouldn't start. The starter seemed very sluggish, which I assumed at the time to be a battery issue given the long-stand in absurd weather. I tried jumping the car and the starter stopped all together. I tested the voltage on the battery which showed the starter wasn't drawing any power, so it was buggered. I ordered another and got round to fitting it. As with anything on this car, it was a ball-ache of a job and had to be done from underneath. As a bonus, my MR2 was still in the garage on axle-stands and without wheels, so I had the pleasure of doing this in the cold and fog on the drive.
Even after all these years, I still find myself laid on my back underneath sodding cars.
http://img542.imageshack.**/img542/2433/starter1.jpg
What kind of sadistic ar*ehole puts a starter there?! This was after I'd removed a large shield too and it's conveniently just far enough underneath to make everything a one-handed job unless you have a ramp.
http://img687.imageshack.**/img687/5486/starter2.jpg
Still, an easy enough job if not for the cold. The car fired up and I took her for a quick run. I had hoped to give her a bit of a boot-full but as you can see, the visibility was pretty poor!
http://img826.imageshack.**/img826/4043/starter3.jpg
After a couple of days of the car working fine, I decided to head out towards Holmefirth for a bit of an afternoon jolly. I got as far as Denby Dale when the car erupted in a cloud of white smoke and I looked out of the rear view mirror to see coolant spewing out. I got the car off the roundabout and switched the engine off. I was fortunate enough to catch it before the temperature gauge even moved.
Worse, I'd stopped about 50m away from the roundabout, where two lanes go into one. Apparently 50m isn't enough distance for people to see a broken down RX7, and no less than FOUR cars slammed on (to the point of tyre smoke) to avoid it. So I pushed the car another 50-100m and sat on the grass waiting for the RAC.
http://img9.imageshack.**/img9/5083/coolant1o.jpg
Even at this distance, some people were slamming on and moving at the last minute. I figured I couldn't take watching this level of stupidity for much longer, and soon realised that I'd conveniently broken down near a pub. So I spent the next hour like this:
http://img40.imageshack.**/img40/1025/coolant2.jpg
The RAC man arrived and topped up the coolant before suspecting the radiator. So I awaited a tow truck, topped up the coolant again and drove the car onto the back of it. The engine was fine, which was good news at least. Back at home in the garage, I got some of the cooling system stripped apart to check for any leaks, and replaced the thermostat while everything was off.
http://img259.imageshack.**/img259/9585/coolant3.jpg
Unfortunately, I couldn't find any leaks. I didn't suspect the radiator at this point due to the large amount of water above it (at the time I figured it might have been a faulty jubilee clip on a hose coming from the thermostat housing). I'd worked late into the night and decided to leave it for another day.
http://img855.imageshack.**/img855/9562/coolant4.jpg
After re-assembling everything and checking all the pipes again, I filled up the coolant and started the engine. After 10 minutes or so, white smoke began to come out from underneath so I switched it off and checked again for leaks. Again not coming from anywhere obvious, but lots of smoke/steam near the radiator (difficult to tell whether it was coming from here or not though).
So, back to square-one. Will be stripping the whole cooling system now and potentially replacing the radiator. Unfortunately I don't have access to a pressure-tester to make this much easier. It also means the MR2 is getting used to living outside again. On the plus-side, I might actually get round to fitting my spoiler and diffuser while the car is in the garage!
http://img163.imageshack.**/img163/1975/garage1t.jpg