Hi can anyone help? My XJ8 recently burst its radiator bowing the bottom of it out by several inches, and I am looking for possible causes. I am hoping to fix this myself as I cannot afford the garage. They had it originally, pulling it apart and damaging a gearbox coooler pipe clamp in the process. They want £000's to rectify their mistake and get it to a diagnosable condition. Up until that point (after the rad blew) the engine started and ran fine. I have cut out the bottom few rows of the rad and they are clear and unblocked. Any ideas as to what could have caused this would be really helpful and gratefully received.

 

I am wanting to remove each of the plugs to see if I can detect any cylinder issues indicating head gasket failure however I don't have clearance to remove the coils, for example fouling on the suspension strut tunels. Any ideas how I can get them out without damaging the coils?

 

It looks like ice damage to me. Was there a lot of dirt and crud in the lower fins?

Second guess would be somebody did a leak check using to much pressure.

 

Thanks John for the reply. Sadly it was in July and happened whilst I was driving (the usual instant cloud), also the fins weren't badly gunged up either. However it hadn't occured to me that someone could have overpressured it in the past and the car has been living on borrowed time. Hmmm! It would explain it.