radiator overflow bottle

this is one for all you owners of late model amazons. Does your plastic overflow bottle have a small hole just below the neck, maybe a breather. I ask because the one on my 69 amazon has and it squirts the entire contents of the radiator over the engine bay. I know it's a pressurised system but yikes,that can't be right. looks like a proper original hole, not a split or accidentaly pierced by anything. I was a little worried that the head gasket had gone and compression was leaking into the cooling water but hopefully i'm just paranoid. Can anyone explain this system and suggest whats going on. cheers all.

Yes my 69 121 is exactly as you describe. Have no overflow problems with mine. if you want to look at mine email me. All the best.

Yup, it's an overflow. The cap has a pressure plate that when it reaches a certain point, rises up, allowing excess coolant to drain out via a pipe to under the car. As for why it's spitting out coolant: How full are you filling the bottle? IIRC, the max mark is about 2/3s up, and if you fill to the top, it will spit out the excess at running temperature (& pressure) even if the cap & cooling system are in perfect working order. If it's being kept at the right level, then it's possible that the cap has lost the correct pressure setting, and is releasing at a much lower temp / pressure than it should.

222 Can you elaborate on the statement "allowing excess coolant to drain out via a pipe to under the car" ? I dont have this pipe just an open hole which like others is prone to spitting every so often. Russ

Surely if the coolant is blowing out straight away and from cold there must be significant pressure being put into the system from something like a blowing head gasket? I've had them blow out coolant from the bottle once the temp gets up but never straight away from cold. Another regular culprit is the sticking thermostat - but that wouldn't effect a cold engine.

I made a catch can from a bicycle drinks bottle on one car, as per pics. Cost peanuts and is removable, too shiney for the Amazon but there's less blingy ones. I found my Amazon slightly pesky to bleed. I put a bleed tap from a scrappy in a heater hose, but it wasn't a total fix. After seemingly bleeding well at standstill, on a drive the temp went up quick and then down quick (sign of air in the system), burped it out OK. Jacking up the front helped a previous non-Amazon car, not tried it with my Amazon though.

mine has a non-removeable cap on the rad so when i flushed it i had to take the top rad hose off, fill the engine, swivel the hose so it pointed up and use it as afunnel to fill the rad, re-attach it to the engine, fill the little bottle, then i hooked the bottom clip on the bottle onto the metal clip made for the top of the bottle (hope that makes sense)so that most of it was sitting above rad height. i then squeezed the top rad hose several times and the pressure pushed the air bubbles at the top of the rad up the tube and into the bottle, ran it with the lid off until hot, squeezed the hose a few more times when i turned it off then again out of paranoia each time i drove her for the next few days, never had a problem and dont lose 1 drop of water. definitely sounds like you have an issue with air or gaskets.