20b cosmo, engine symptoms.
 

hi all, first post here. i was wondering if anyone could help?

im looking to buy a cosmo 20b, it only has 60,00kms from new, the car is standard and has been owned by the same family since new.

i went to look at the car today.
the car is in great condition, and has had very little usage.

now upon starting up the car, it took a while (15-20sec of cranking) to fire into life. it did splutter a little. then cleared up.
white smoke came out of the back for a couple of minutes and then eventually cleared.
i left the car idling for 10-15 minutes whilst i checked out the rest of the car.

i did notice the water temp gauge did reach 1/2 way within a matter of minutes. i did not know if this was normal or odd as rotaries are known to warm up quickly.

i then took it for a quick spin around the block, 2-3 minutes at best

parked it back up, and looked under the bonnet again, this is when i saw the top rad hose was swollen, almost twice the size as normal.
i didnt do any other checks on it, i.e touch the rad, lower hose or check for bubbles etc.

now i have done alot of reading about how to check for possible o ring leaks, failed water pumps etc, but i cant find nothing definitive about swollen rad hose and was wondering if anyone could chime in with their experiences and what it could possibly be that causing this


any help would be great. thanks