Saxo cooling system.

[billpine]

Fella's. Bought myself a cheap Saxo diesel. Convinced myself there's a problem with the cooling system.

About 3 minutes after starting and the heaters are blowing hot. 10 minutes into a drive the header water is hot but the top pipe, rad and bottom pipe are all cold? Engine running and header cap off water is feeding back in and is clean.

Don't know how long the engine needs to run before the thermostat opens? Normally we'd check the temperature gauge but for whatever reason this one has been fitted with a 106 instrument panel so only a light for reference which doesn't illuminate or hasn't yet. Changed the header cap and doesn't seems to be loosing/boiling any water..

Any thoughts?

[BUMMERS]

Change the thermostat?

[billpine]

Changed it today. Still got the problem. Wondering if it needs a longer run to get the thermostat open. Water in the pipes before and after the thermostat?

[Chipwizards]

Yes probably.
Is the head and upper block too hot to touch?
If not it isn't running too hot. You can touch 80 degrees temp but not for long, unless you're stupid.
Better still measure the temp with a thermometer of some sort. IR ones read lower on materials with lower 'emissivity', so an alloy head which is silver in colour will show a few degrees lower than actual temperature.