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[arcpath]

Hey all, first post & capri newbie.

I picked up a 92 xr2 with 125k miles. Recently i’ve noticed a loud ‘gurling’ sound coming from the inside the radiator hose. Obviously this is more noticeable after running it hard, and cutting the car off. Other Symptoms include randomly spiking (and leveling out) temp guage, and having to re fill the coolant overflow tank. Also seems to be (slightly) lacking power. There isn’t a blatant leak anywhere. How common are head gasket replacements on these little cars? The previous owner left a slew of parts, including a water pump and head gasket. Maybe that’s a sign lol. Anyways, any troubleshooting tips or insights would be super.

Cheers!

[Rocketman]

Welcome!

Gurgling could be as simple as a bad radiator cap. It's not letting the system pressurize properly and the coolant is boiling. I have had this before.

The head gaskets are pretty good on the B6 engine, not usually a problem. There is a caveat to this, if a previous owner overheated the engine severely, it can cause the HG to fail. Say, by driving too long on a broken water pump/alternator belt (a common enough problem)

I'd check the system for leaks, replace the radiator cap with a new one (cheap) maybe pull the plugs to inspect, and go from there with troubleshooting.
There's a few tiny coolant lines that can cause issues. To & from the idle valve mounted to the intake manifold, runs thru the throttle body then to the bypass pipe around the engine block. Also a tiny 90° line running from the t-stat area on the head to the bypass line. And the turbo coolant lines.

Keep us updated!