$200 Crack
Got home last week right before we left for Austin and John points out steam coming from the front of the car. I knew the radiator was slowly leaking more coolant as the days got colder but didn’t expect it to have steam billowing out. Anyways, I get back and check the coolant level four days later and turns out the whole expansion tank is empty. Damn. So I bit the bullet and bought another radiator.
The package comes in on Monday boxed all nice and I decide to install it that night.
Open the box and find a nice shiny new radiator.
Drain the coolant.
Start to remove the old POS and realize that I forgot to reattach a coolant sensor the last time I removed it to replace the timing belt and other stuff. Boy, I’m kinda clumsy sometimes.
Here’s the old extracted radiator.
Note the evidence of a crack.
And this is interesting. The old radiator was not original equipment. The clips used attach the fan shroud were ground down in order to fit the narrower grooves.
No wonder I couldn’t attach the replacement clip I got from the dealer. Good thing I was too lazy to ground it down and put it in before the radiator broke.
Job complete:
And I didn’t even have to use the rule of 3. Only took an hour. Plus some cursing and bitching when I realized I didn’t tighten the bleeder screw and wondered why the engine was steaming after a test run.