I have a Subaru Sambar supercharged 660cc which has been running at normal temperature except when I put my foot down, then it will start to overheat so I have to bring the temperature down by putting the heater on. I recently forgot to keep an eye on the temperature and it went really high and oil vapour started coming from the exhaust. I stopped the van and noticed there was a lot of oil covering the back of the van and dripping down. There was no loss of power. I got a lift home with the AA and haven't had a chance to look at it yet. I will be able to check it over this weekend. What do you think could cause this to happen and what is my next coarse of action?
Is your fan coming on when temp. gets high? Often the radiators on most of these trucks need to be cleaned out big time. Thats the first thing I check when we obtained a truck. Ive seen radiators and heater cores stopped up. Another thing is to clean out the pre heat fluid line that pre heats the carb. on cold starts. Ive had a good hand full of trucks where this line was completely stopped up. If it got really hot I would check compression on the each cylinder just for grins. That will tell u a lot.
it could be a lot of things...crankcase ventilation...low compression/blowby...overfilled crankcase can cause all the above including overheating...overheating will also thin the oil to the point it easily blows by the rings as well so it could just be a cooling issue...not sure if your supercharger has a separate oil revervoir or is tied into the main lube. system...could be some worm bearings in it..but you would (or should) hear that..
The van was running ok in normal driving and the van comes on when I stop. It's the clean oil sprayed all over the back that concerns me - could it be a blown head gasket?
I meant fan comes on not van! The van isalways garaged and always starts on the button. It had a new water pump and cam belt recently and a service about 1500 miles ago.
Humble apologies - I feel such a fool - it was dark! Not oil but brown rusty water - a hose had split and sprayed it everywhere, I was easy to fix and I flushed the gunge out of the cooling system with a hose pipe from every direction and it's running beautifully now and no overheating.
