| Coolant and the mystic cap!!!
Hi all, I wondered if someone can please help me.
My beloved Mini Cooper S 2002 has an issue. I'll write the whole story in case, most will probably be irrelevant but might help.
I was washing my car at the weekend at the local jetwash and lightly went over the car including the radiator area at the front of the car. Once this was done I started driving home and arrived at a set of traffic lights that kept me there for a long while. While waiting steam starting coming from under the bonnet. I've had this before after hard rain in our area which (before) quickly stopped. This how ever did not stop. The temperature gauge started creeping up towards red, at this stage traffic lights went to green and i HAD to move. Immediately the steam stopped and the gauge started falling.
Around 200m from home the gauge SHOT up to red and the light came on. I quickly parked up and lifted the bonnet. The cap for my coolant tank was missing! and steam was coming out of the engine bay. "GREAT, i've lost my coolant" I thought.
I went to the local dealership and got a replacement cap ordered and delivered, i've put in around 1.5l of replacement fluid, turned on the engine, put the fan on max and temp up high and unscrewed the small valve on the radiator hose at the radiator itself. A little air came out but nothing in the way of liquid.
In an effort to get the water moving I took my car for a little drive around the block, again stopped and unscrewed the valve... just a bit of air. After around 5 mins the temp gauge headed north again!!!
Do I need to get my car to a garage to be bled professionally or is there something I can do myself? I'm hoping it's nothing more serious :-s
Many thanks in advance, you guys are great when it comes to small and large issues.
Mark
p.s. I can actually put my hand on the radiator and it's not even warm :-(  | 
