Proton Persona coolant pipe leaking and full radiator replacement

Meter goes up to overheat zone once reached home

Us human... Illness and age-related disease will come to hunt us as we grow older everyday and so do the same with cars.

My Proton Persona has been with me for 17 years and the engine is still running strong until today which I appreciate it very much.

But it was the problem with coolant system this time when the temperature went up while I was driving home from work and I was lucky enough as the engine started to overheat when I reached home.

I immediately turn off the engine and go to check the engine bay to see what went wrong where I start to notice smoke is coming up from the gearbox area.

The coolant liquid was leaking from the pipe and subsequently contaminated underneath engine mounting.

Because of my hobby which likes to troubleshoot and experience things myself, I decided to repair it on the coming weekend during off day. First, I have to remove the air intake system because it is blocking the point of leakage.

Then, I spotted some rust at the joint between the long hose to the steel pipe at the thermostat location.

I tried to pull out the long hose from the steel pipe to see further the leakage so I can pinpoint the exact location of the leaks.

Oh, my god! The steel look like very weak...

Because of the complexity of the hose and the steel pipe, unfortunately, I have to abort the mission of doing myself and decided to let some expert to handle this as I start to think maybe this is beyond my limit. So, I reassemble everything and drive my car to the nearest workshop when free. 

My car has been abandoned for 2 few weeks and within this period I think why not just go and change everything once and for all since the radiator has never been touched and due to aging factor which could leads to the next things to fail. Finally, I have made up my mind to change the whole cooling system together with the timing belt and water pump as my car is now hitting close to 150,000km mileage.

The time has come for me to fix it at last and I have ordered every spare parts up front within 2 weeks period while appointment has also been made with the mechanic to repair my car. The first thing to look for once my car reached workshop is the location of the leaks and now it is obvious that it is not at the long hose steel but rather directly underneath the thermostat.

Then, the mechanics release the clamp and pull out the low hose connected to the steel pipe and it frightens me.

Everything looks so rusty!

I took the liberty to snap a photo of memory for the travelled mileage since my last timing belt change back in 2016 at 93536km. I will not explain further regarding the timing belt changing process as I have posted it before and you can go check out at the link https://inamigo.blogspot.com/2016/11/replacing-proton-persona-engine-timing.html.

2016-2007=9 years @ 93536km means 10,000km/year!!!

Next, while he is taking out parts by parts and I go on to check all new spare parts are purchased completely including the replacement steel pipe with rubber ring, thermostat with washer and retaining clip, long hose, low hose, top hose, a new radiator unit with double layer tubes and 4 bottles of 1 litre coolant which 2 has been used to fill the radiator when driving from home to workshop to prevent from engine overheat due to insufficient coolant.

The first part that the mechanic taken out was the steel pipe and it was very different from the new steel pipe which require some modification to the long hose.

Inside the steel pipe where the thermostat was located was even more bizarre where I can see some thick rust dirt build up.

Then, the long hose and the low hose was taken out.

A look inside the low hose is truly mind-blowing as it seen completely coated with a layer of rust with some shining metal powder.

Next, the old radiator was taken out and there is no different between both of them at the inlet and outlet. So, this is a direct swap but the only different is just the new radiator was thicker. As my Persona was the first batch every from Proton so that means it is a non-IAFM Campro engine with only single radiator fan.

The entire low hose was coated with rust till the outlet of the radiator.

Now its turn for the top hose and a look inside is like disaster with large debris of metal sticking to the body.

After that, I have went on to check the actual root cause of the leaks and discovered there is a tiny hole at the bottom of the steel body after the thermostat was removed.

I arrived here close to 11am and now its already lunch time where the mechanic said they needed break. So, I have went on my meal nearby and bought a bottle of distilled water because they said 2 bottles of coolant are not enough which mixing with plain water is required.

Lunch! Municipal pipe water contains mineral which will cause steel oxidation and rust formation in radiator

After I came back from lunch and observed they had already replaced the timing belt and the water pump.

Subsequently, they move on to install the steep pipe together with long hose and it is not easy because mount is at the back under the intake manifold where 2 men is needed to complete this task.

The hardest part of the job is completed and just look how nice the new steel pipe really was.

Peep inside the hole also revealed the new thermostat was properly fixed.

After that, it's time to install back the new radiator with the low hose.

Then, I do my courtesy to check all connection points are properly secured.

The hardest location which is also at the back of engine need careful checking.

Making sure the steel pipe is securely fixed to the water pump from below the engine bay.

And also the low hose to the radiator.

Next, coolant and distilled water was fill in and engine started to circulate inside the cooling system.

At last, I took the liberty to snap a photo of my currently travelled mileage after second time timing belt change.

148185-93536=54649km @ 8 years means 6,831km/year!!!

Finally,everything is complete...

Below was the cost of repair including all spare parts at a reasonable price and labour charge which I deemed was too expensive but what to do? This is the nearest workshop to my house as I couldn't afford to lose an engine just to save a little bit of money.

The thing that I learned was radiator cooling system is forbidden to use household pipe water as it will cause rust and eventually damaging the steel pipe and also radiator but since I bought this car at my early 20's and I didn't have this knowledge before. During my beginning year owning this car, I kept on adding pipe water when coolant is low and this is the consequences of not maintaining well of my engine and now lesson learned.

 

Thanks for reading and if you anything to say then please feel free to leave it down in the comment section below.