Can someone tell me what the safe/nominal operating temperature of an L18 should be. I just fitted an electronic calibrated temp guage and mine got up to 210 deg F, that's normal city driving with a stint on the freeway. Oh and it dosn't have a radiator shroud.

If this sounds seriously wrong, and I think it does, can anybody hazard a guess at what the problem might be. There's no sign of bubbles in the radiator so hopefully the 4000km old rebuilt engine is still ok

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Maxy's taxi is a '76 120y coupe with a L18

210F is about 100C so you're definatly pushing it. It should really be closer to 80C.

Are you losing any water? If not, Id start with checking the timing.

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The only water I'm losing is what goes out the overflow pipe when it expands. The timing could be the problem, I don't have a timing light on hand to check it though, but given the marks that i put on the dizzy when i was using the light to time it, it should be around the 8 to 10 deg BTDC. Shouldn't the timing need to be a long way off before it causes this much over heating Is it too far advanced that causes over heating

Any other ideas

g`day
youre not still using the 120y radiator are you?
those things are tiny

No that would cause problems, I attacked the mounting bulge in the front of the car with an air saw and put in the bluebird unit which should do the job.

If the radiator was blocked up would that cause the over heating??

In case anyones interested the problem was the hydro-clutch on the fan, which I'm sure you all know is attatched to the water pump making it very expensive. The prick of a thing about all this is the water pump was brand new ($150) , fortunately we had a 6 month old unit on a Stanza which does the job

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Maxy's taxi is a '76 120y coupe with a L18

If someone's trying to charge you $150 for an L series water pump then they should be locked up.

And it's weird that the clutch fan isn't removable from the waterpump. I'm pretty sure I added one of those fans to number 2 1600 many years ago, and it was a bolt up job, but my memory isn't what it used to be. (If it ever was...can't remember...)

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Chris [;-{)>

Yes $150 is pretty steep, however the water pump/clutch ( of a 200B) is all one sealed unit to the point where 1 of the bolts is included because the fan pulley prevents it from being removed . But then again car manufactures have always over charged for parts

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Maxy's taxi is a '76 120y coupe with a L18