Hi everyone from Oz in the Asia Pacific region.

New owner of used T4R 93 model on petrol and gas (not the american gasolene). Almost 300 000kms, paid A$6000 and got it RWC real easy.

BUT Overheats, radiator covered in mud, air cond not working. Went to go away on Easter break towing a trailer, thing overheated! Had to leave trailer at servo station,head back home, swap for Falcon EF, back to servo, pick up trailer, then same old routine at block of land, hitch trailer to old clapped out Dihatsu, up the hill, drive the EF up without trailer and if heavy rain threatened drive EF out b4 mud. Lucky neighbour is a good egg and lets us park city cars if nec. Lucky for the old clapped out Dihatsu!

Wonderful site. Showed me where the air filter was (duh) and nice car to drive, up high, smooth, lectric things, more room for tin lids (kids).

Any essential knowledge you can tell me would be invaluable.

either clean off the mud or get a new one.. not sure what else could cause it to overheat?

the aircon may need to be re-gassed?

I would

1. clean off radiator
2. Run truck while it is sitting, checking for leaks and make sure fan clutch kicks in when it gets hot.
3. check fluid level
4. While the truck is COLD, take rad cap off and top off fluid, let truck run with the cap off until it is up to temp. make sure you see fluid start flowing through radiator once it is hot, means the thermostat is working.

I would guess that it is the dirty rad, the fluid level, the fan clutch, or the thermostat. If you find something leaking, replace it. If the fan does not come one at temperature, good chance it's a bad clutch. Any questions, ask!

Flush the radiator?

YEah, gonna clean it up this weekend.

Someone said the fan should be going any time the air con is on regardless of engine temp. This is what I checked straight away, being easy and free to do, fan is not going, but is that because the air con has couple of broken hoses (diagnosed yesterday) Also mud on and in condensor (must be one of the broken hoses).
When air con works again will fan go again or is that a separate issue again? We are going to clean radiator up, flush, replace hoses, fix air con, replace condensor (we want the air con anyway with kids) then see if the thing overheats still, if so, get on to thermostat or fan if broken. Fan clutch replacement easy? Or do whole thing?

I don't want to fix what's not broken and I want to understand how things affect one another.

Several posts here mention various problems with overheating, fins in the bottom of radiator not letting water flow through properly, clearance at bottom of radiator, air condensor clean?, spotties blocking air flow, all sorts of things could be causing overheating. Perhaps it is the dirty condensor, hopefully fixing one thing will repair two problems.

Any other idiosyncracies the T4R has which I should know about? Do they tow a load alright? The thing only overheats on the highway towing a load, it doesn't overheat going to kinder or shopping or around the place!

Cheers

tin lids.
ah ha ha thats one i've never heard before.

I would stick with the basics and do those steps I mentioned earlier. That should diagnose most of your possible problems. K-labs has a good point as well about flushing the radiator. If you approach it systematically, you are much less likely to end up throwing parts at it. When you have your cap off, also check the color of the coolant... It may only be filled with water, or the coolant may be excessively rusty or dirty... Keep us posted! I had an 85 22re that I used every day for construction work, and I towed trailers and hauled large loads of lumber all over north georgia, and it never overheated on me.

Fair point, but be sure to be preventative, too. Looks like you're already doing that by replacing the radiator hoses. While you're flushing the system, it is easier to go ahead and replace the radiator hoses, thermostat, and belts. For a few dollars, you're preventing a problem.

Looking into it all now.
Thanks for all your advice