Car is now running well enough for me to find other problems. The PO says he replaced the water pump due to leakage not to long ago and the radiator was "cleaned and inspected" (whatever that means) by a local radiator shop.

It seems to take a long time to reach operating (N) temperature, at least 15 minutes of driving but then it eventually creeps up there and past N by up to a needle width. Going above 50 mph seems to increase the rate of increase. The electric fan does kick on and stays running for several minutes after shut down.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? I was opining that it could be bad thermostats stuck in a partially opened position, allowing for poor warm-up characteristics when cold but acting as a blockage later.

I believe I have properly purged the system however, I do not get any heat through the heater inside the car regardless of environmental switch settings. The air bleeding procedures I have seen specify "defog" as the correct setting but I feel no heat at that or any other setting. Assuming an inoperative heater valve, can I manually open it by applying vacuum to the diaphram? Could this be related to my over heating issue? Thank you.

"...it just goes to show you, it's always something." Roseanne Roseannadanna

 

15min for warm up is ok there is 23l of coolant in the system.

The rest sounds to me like the radiator is not tip top condition and/or there is debris between the radiator and AC condenser.

If it were me I would not muck around - remove the radiator and take it to GOOD radiator shop and have them either rod clean or re-core it. Re-core fixed ALL of my overheating issues - bar the dodgy fan clutch.