Thanks Conehead.
OK, I needed to deal with this so I approached it in the Dutch fashion. Finger in the dyke and all that. Drained as best I could the messy way. Got Rach to stick her thumb over the inlet as I removed the master drain valve. Water pissing over me, Rach, the newly plastered wall and our nice wooden floor! Never mind, I needed a good shower anyway! Probably about 5 or 6 pints and none of that black sludge came out.
Once I had the drain plug on i could drain the system in the normal way and replace all the valves properly with ptfe and everything. Filled everything up and re-pressurised the system and blow me if I hadn't cross threaded one of my thermostat valves. I officially hate radiators. would rather replace a fuel tank on my blade while smoking a fag and blowing out my birthday cake than have to do this again. Anyway I've isolated that radiator, and bled it to reduce the pressure on the leak.
Tomorrow, start the whole process over again to replace the borked TRV. I'm supposed to be prepping my bike for tuesday's track day not doing this nonsense. God I hate DIY.
I have a whole new respect for plumbobbers.
