Anti Freeze

I wonder if one of the rad caps is just very slightly weeping when things get hot? The tiny traces of steam might not be noticed unless there is a very good nose in the area at the time. However, Bob, has a few very much more likely suggestions to try first. If you do need to check the caps only do it when the engine is cold…

Radiator

Yes John, that one. As long as it’s not cracked or damaged any other way and not cross-threaded it should be ok.

There can be more than one cap, some have seals and at least one ‘might’ have a pressure relief valve to vent any over pressure. I assume that the system has an overflow catch tank the status of that can be overlooked as sometimes it looks like a washer bottle and is sometimes rather tucked away. The small pipe can fail and allow either pressure leaks or water droplets to escape.

However, if the system has a history of leaking that could be a more obscure issue and I have no desire to float off on a raft of speculation.

Bob, too true they told me I needed new disks at about 28,000 miles a number of years ago, but 10 years later and by 96,500 miles I did. I had them done by my usual service garage.

I know I often harp on about the place where I was workshop foreman for many years, but we prided ourselves on looking after the local motoring community as fairly as possible. A pit village until 1988, there was also a fairly well-to-do larger village 2 miles away, stretching into the A60 Nottingham road where the real money was. A surprising number of wealthy folk used to come to us: one in particular had been co-owner of an Estate Agency chain, sold out to his younger partner and retired. He had been running pre-owned BMW’s to that point and we carried out all his servicing and repairs. He decided to put some of his new wealth into a 735i, and went to a Nottingham main dealer to buy it. Got himself a good deal (estate agent, right?) and then shocked them by saying he wanted us to service and maintain it. They refused, so he walked out. They called him back and tried to talk down to him: big mistake. he walked again. In the end they settled for carrying out the first service and making us take genuine BMW parts. When I left (’95), he still had the car and the garage was still servicing it, but after the warranty ended it was pattern parts.

The same chap told me something interesting when the Poll Tax came out. He said that it meant that he could now buy his daughter a much better car, whilst guys like me were running what we could. Considering his wealth, there was nothing standoffish about him: he once went up to the chippy at lunchtime and sat eating fish’n’chips with us in our cabin. He was also a big tipper.

The garage was a real family affair: boss was a farmer and ex-biker mate, left the garage for me to run: up on his farm was a huge pair of garages, where the Recovery trucks lived. His twin sons ran the body shop, I trained his youngest son as a mechanic, and his daughter was the receptionist/secretary. Boss’s wife grew up across the road from me. The best part about starting there, was that after 2 years we put the place over the road out of business. As that was the place I started in after leaving the Army, and was run by an ex-German POW who was a Psycho, I was happy with that. We made no distinction between customers: I would not allow anyone to jump the work rota, no matter how much wealth or how big their house.