Bleeder Valve up when the coolant is hot?
 

Hi,

I replaced my bleeder valve last week, after that I drove a couple of days with it up to bleed the system a little.
Yesterday when I got back home, I wanted to close the valve, however it was stuck up, after engine (and coolant) cooled down I could close the valve normally.
I took a drive to heat the engine again and bleeder valve was up again..

Is it normal?

Sasha

PS: My old valve was deformed and my coolant boiled a bit so I added some coolant and water hence the need for bleeding it

Its normal. As the coolant heats, the valve goes up.

Thanks

Then what's the point of opening the bleeder valve to bleed the system, if it opens when coolant is hot by itself...

Also if valve is open there will be always condensation on the trunk lid, I didn't see it before my old valve broke.

Sasha

It is definitely NOT normal. The valve is intended to stay closed until manually opened. If it were to open, it would lower the boilover point of the coolant - the system is supposed to operate at 13psi.

I suspect that:
1.) you did not get the right part
2.) the part is defective
3.)you installed it incorrectly
4.) you didn't close it correctly

Cheers!

I thought the same, but I beg to differ. My bleeder valve stays up all the time when its hot and my system has a new coolant tank and waterpump, absolutely no condensation and no loss of coolant. See the following for an explanation of how the bleeder works.

http://forums.rennlist.com/rennforums/boxster-and-boxster-s-986-forum/635082-coolant-bleeder-question.html

you're talking about two different things - the clip and the valve. you can flip the clip up to force the valve open all the time to burp the system, but it should not pop up on its own. the valve may open from time to time to relieve pressure (should be rare) but if you see the clip pop up on its own, something's wrong.

sasha, did you notice that the new breather valve (the black plastic tip) actually sits alittle higher than the original old one, when it is installed ? Thereby the metal clip is alittle looser on the new valve than the old one ?? Noticed that on mine.

Anyway, to your question - on my new breather valve, the black tip is high up (sometimes to the point that I can flip the metal clip up with little tension) when the engine is hot. But with the new coolant bottle, I don't have any condensation at all.

When I had condensation after installing the new valve, it was traced to 3 hairline fractures on the top of the coolant bottle (caused when I re-installed the new breather valve because I thought something was wrong as the black tip sat abit higher than the old one :mad: It was fine after the first install).

Check your coolant bottle for cracks - mine was so fine, that almost missed them... they were like little fine scratches on the black plastic surface and partly covered by the breather valve.

Thanks everyone,
After reading all explanations.. it actually makes sense:)

After some more investigations it seems that my condensation was coming from coolant cap. I have the new cap (04 version) but the threads on the tank were old, also the plastic cover that you put on the tank was kinda stopping in one of the plastic ribs on the tank which made it impossibile to screw the cap tightly.

I cut the plastic cover a little and added some PTFE tape on the threads on the tank.. and after 2 hr drive no more condensation so far.

Thanks
Sasha