Coolant

Hi all,
newbie here, 1994 2.8 camper. Loving it. Just managed to remove all the furniture to get to my rear heater matrix fitted in the side of bodywork, which is blowing cold, ( not so good in Scotland ). I'm going to remove and flush it tomorrow in the hope that it might just be clogged up, the valve underneath seems not to be stuck from an external viewpoint i.e the cable is moving the lever.

Without a manual I'm only guessing at how to refill and make sure there is no trapped air in the system, or is this not really a problem? Any advice greatly appreciated.

I keep having to top up the overflow bottle, so I must be losing water somewhere but can't for the life of me see a leak, and the performance is fine. It must be a leak, right?

I can usually tackle most things,but, with a manual, so excuse any blatant stupid questions and thanks in advance for any help.
Cheers.

When you're topping up, make sure all the heater vents are set to hot, so water can move freely around, should help minimise risk of air lock. Once its topped up, run it and then check again, it will prob need topping, then its just making sure its making its way everywhere. Best advice is to top up nice n slowly...

as for the leak.... any leak is a bad thing, but the overflow bottle shouldn;t need topping up, just the radiator,if the radiator is ok then you're cool...

if not the leak could be from the radiator or maybe the overflow pipe? If not it "could" be your head gasket, check to see if there is water in the oil or if the cooling system is pressuised when the engine is running.... hopefully its just a pinhole leak in the cooling system thats hard to see!!

does it smoke a bit in the morning when its been sitting over night ..?....often a sign of head gasket/cracked head....

Big cooling system...can suck air into it on cool down when the system is under vacuum...either via pin hole or a hose joint. I had the air coming in through a top hose joint.
When you sort the rear heater always leave it in the on position to stop it jamming shut...seem to recall someone having a moving lever which was'nt actually opening the valve so look carefully.........

Thanks very much for your reponses. Much appreciated and useful. Rear heater matrix well hidden behind the furniture in the side of the van so it took a couple of hours to remove the interior to get to it. In the end as far as heat goes it was just a rubbish solution to remove the heater grilles from the van sides and remount them on the bottom of the fitted cabinets as all that was doing was warming under the cabinets! I fitted 1' 1/2'' drainage pipe to channel the air and now it works. Result. Could have had a stuck valve too but in searching for the matrix I probably loosened it off anyway with the copiius amounts of WD40.
Once again thanks. Top forum. The others seem dead.