by rover » Thu Oct 19, 2006 9:04 am
I doubt you have damaged the engine Andy, they are very hardy, the rattling is most likely down to timing chain and or little ends because of the heat, if you werent chucking water out then it should be fine. It sounds like the rad is blocked or the water pump is getting weak, id go for the rad first, it was second hand after all, best way to check those rads is to take bothe top and bottom hose off and put a hose pipe in the top inlet, they run so free (when not blocked) that you should be able to turn the hose on full and the water will come shooting out the bottom, if it backs up and pushes it back out the top then the rad is blocked, more likely than not with limescale. If its just the rad then you want a Granada one as thats what it came from, then give it an oil and filter change, the oil in at the mo is Granville 10/40 semi synthetic.
Rover.
this time it had also got verry hot so we called the bloke Bare was buying his van off ,who came out and towed us to his place . Bear did the deal on his van and we set uot in his van to find a friends of mine who lives in Wisbeach St Mary we drove round for around an hour looking for his place but could not find it so we returned to my van which buy this time had cooled down .It started no problen and no rattle I dicided to make a steady run home every thing went fine till we reached Lecster when the same thing hapend again .Bear who is new to vaning and hadent towed before towed me as far as brownhills where we stoped my van again started fine no rattles no smoke out of the exhaust evry thing appeared to be fine so I drove back the short distance home just as i pulled up out side my house it started ratteling again and the oil light came on ,on having a further look the radiator is only hot on the right hand side top hose is hot but the bottom hose is cold I there fore take it that there is a blockage in the cooling system some where Ill investigate further tomorrow , but think its new engine time the rattle did sound like big ends but i cant be sure till ive had a good look . Thanks Bear and Pam for all your pacitence and for ensuring I got home with my Van without the cost of a recovery 
It sounds as though you were very close to damaging the engine 
andy seems strange but shurely if the oil light was comeing on and then she was rattling that indicates no oil preshure so maybe oil pump i would try and check, i thourt you had a gauge???????
