Overheating problems, Fan not kicking in

You're right in that steam shouldn't come out - its designed to be a sealed system. If your temperature gauge works properly, then you can tell if its genuinely overheating or merely 'getting hot' - they could go up to 3/4 before the fan kicks in, once the fan is on it should come down.

If you're seeing steam, it might simply be that you have a leaky connection, rather than it actually overheating. Obviously a flush and checking out the radiator is worthwhile, but take a good look at it because it might be okay and not need replacement.

well i flushed it with rad flush and it made it worse. Now i am losing coolant out of the cap in a big way. It feels like there is a big build up of pressure.

Takes quite a while for all of the parts of the rad to heat up, seems as if the bottom left of the rad (opposite side to the switch is very cold) and im guessing there is not enough water running over the switch making it kick in.

Im hoping this is the problem as its going to be expensive to replace

this might sound stupid but is your water pump working?
have you checked your belt.

you've checked all the electrical but if hot water isn't getting to the switch it an't goina work.

also I would't be the first time the impeler had rotted off the pump.
so it looks fine from the outside.
your saying that one side of the radiator is staying cold so it's ether blocked or there no circulation.

 the water is only moving because heat.  I.E, one side hot the other cold and steam coming out the cap.
with the engine running and the cap off you should see water movement once the engine is at operating temp.

i would start checking all the variables

Well the water pump is just under a year old.

Its the bottom part of the rad, where the filler neck is that is warm, but nowhere near as hot as all of the other parts of the rad.

Have a new rad now but not fitting till 2moz

Finally fitted the new rad and its sorted now!

At last

Glad it's sorted , but merely fitting a rad would not have cured the problem, the issue sounds like it was the switch on the rad
Pete

Or an airlock !

Nope old rad was fooked, when i flushed the rad loads of old crap came out of it, so much so that water was not passing through the switch.

Whilst flushing the rad, more of this crap came out