Good morning fellow Bitogers and welcome to the on-going saga of what I will call "cool runnings."
For those of you not in the know, the ever famous but somewhat tired "Bluesmobile," (1993 Ford Taurus GL, 3.0 V-6) has of late been suffering from cooling problems. The composite side of the radiator has developed a crack about two inches long just below the upper hose. As you might imagine, this would leak fluid like an incontinent old man at a beer hall on nickel night.
Solution? Run with the cap loose on the radiator. All was well, or so I thought until I was informed that steam pockets might be developing in the head, thus over heating the engine. That would be bad.
But I'm a hating to spend hard earned cash on the ole gal who days are numbered as it is.
But what if? What if I added some kind of super-duper stop leak to the system. Haven't I seen somewhere all form and manner of leak stopper especially made for vehicle leaks? Yes, yes, I'm sure of it - but which one is the right one as there are hundreds, nay, thousands of products on the market.
I find the internet is my friend as a quick google search weeds out the failures from those attesting and testifying to true success. Armed with said information, I head to the nearest parts store and purchase a produce that comes with rave reviews. Organic, it is, made from the shells of the good ole American Walnut. Ground into a powder and pressed into tabs, I buy a package for the bargain price of 3.99.
The instructions offer two options. One, dissolve tablets in a gallon of hot water and pour said mixture in cooling system, (sounds complicated). Two, insert tablets directly into radiator and run car, (sounds easy enough). I choose option two. Thankfully, organic tablets are the exact size to fit into the filler hole of my ailing rad. "These are made just for me and mine" I reason as they fit perfectly.
Long story short, I add, I fill, I crank car and wait with a glass of cool and refreshing ice tea while these magic pills do their job. I sit confidently in the front seat listening to the oldies station of the radio while I watch the temp gauge on the dash climb to normal, then to three quarters, then into unknown territory of "surface of the sun." This might be bad.
I shut the car off and with ice tea in hand, journey to the front of the car. Something is hissing like a future mother-in-law who has just discovered said future son-in-law has proposed to her daughter. Investigation reveals the crack has opened more with steam spewing out like a broken boiler pipe on an old river boat.
Time for deduction. Has all the water already spewed out of the cooling system that quickly? One sure way to tell - remove the radiator cap.
Oh, I know what you're thinking. "NO! DON'T! STOP! DANGER WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!!!"
But I'm no fool. I understand pressure and heat and boiling water. So I gently turn the cap so release the pressure ready to run at any second. But nothing comes out. No steam, no pressure, no water, no nothing.
Now I'm convinced - the miracle tabs did not do their job and all the water has already peed away. I remove the cap to see.
With cap in hand, I see what looks like a brown wad of coffee grounds in the filler hole of my rad. "Well I'll"
That's all I said. Suddenly, like "Old Faithful" hitting the half hour, my rad exploded with a mixture of boiling water and miracle tabs, blowing said mixture all over the right side of my upper body. I ran like a scaled GreeCguy.
My right arm took got the worst of it with the worst part being my arm pit which in an odd and uncomfortable way still hurts. It makes me wonder if said mixture at said temperature at said point and location will produce the stop leak effect to the point I won't have to use under arm deodorant for the remainder of my days, (right arm pit only though which means I will be stinky only on the left).
As I see it, there are manifold lessons here.
1. Cars, like women, sometimes PMS and attack when you least expect.
2. Sometimes good enough is indeed well enough.
3. Large amounts of "Johnny Walker" does kill the pain, (taken internally, one shot every 15 minutes till no pain is felt).
And finally, yes, I'll be swapping out the radiator. Maybe while I'm at it, I'll buy one of those cute little air fresheners to hang from the mirror as kind of a dozen roses kind of thing.
Good enough and well enough - a hot water saga
- Thread starter GreeCguy
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Very poeticly said.
I'm more of a Joe Friday kind of guy.
"Just the facts Mam"
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I have a lot of experience with those stop-leak things from my younger days. Mostly, clogged radiator cores. I'm not sure I ever used one that stopped a leak.
However, this is the first time I've heard of stop-leak transforming a radiator into an IED.
Glad you're OK, glad that your injuries were treatable by nothing more than the judicious application of scotch.
Originally Posted By: GreeCguy
As you might imagine, this would leak fluid like an incontinent old man at a beer hall on nickel night.
I wouldve tried to JB weld the crack before I put the stuff in it.
Due to breast cancer, my right chest and armpit are scrambled and missing nerves , so a scalding in those parts would be a shrug. But yah, you never know how tender a spot is until you mess it up. I'm on my second cup of Gosling laced coffee for a sore lower back and a wonky right wrist. I had good luck with BarsLeaks for slowing down a heater core leak. A few 1/2 @$$ed repair attempts on a plastic radiator tank, have convinced me that it is futile with conventional epoxies.
Whilst playing under the hood of the Rat, another 20 yr old Ford, I discovered that the radiator was only half full of coolant. The day before, I had driven 20 miles, 40 miles round trip, The gauge sits a little left of normal, the overflow tank is right on the level mark. In my 528s thats a happy cooling system. In the Rat, not so much. On a cold engine, I opened the radiator cap and saw air. I used a piece of hose to sound the tank. Half full. In the time it took to get the coolant jug from the bed, Idling for 5 minutes without the pressure cap got it to spew warm frothy coolant. No big deal, My cars all carry a gallon jug of coolant.It took three qts. Another liquid to keep track of. I thought I had been keeping track with the level in the over flow tank. This was a good catch. A potential major break down averted by vigilance( dumb luck) and idle curiosity. I dunno what the boiling point of the coolant, but it is substantially less at 1 bar. That is the take-away in this long and rambling discourse. Modern cooling systems need pressure to work correctly.
The Rat is a 3rd vehicle, 4th if the work van is included. The sit down lawn mower and the chain saw are higher on the list. Regardless, melting down engines is bush league. Leaks are maintenance issues. Some of them aren't worth fixing. You can carry lotsa water and top 'er off before use. Eventually, this will kill the packing in the water pump. If you can run around town ,filling it as you go.. If not . junk or fix.
Sounds like you had an air pocket and it burped its way out. No stop leak could have fixed it. You need to tend to low coolant situations diligently, nlt walk off and drink tea.
Try again (if only as a learning lesson) with more coolant and the same stop leak. That particular type is the only one I'd condone and works well in certain circumstances.
You say that you understand heat and pressure...but I don't think that's entirely true from your actions and story.
Here's the missing consideration: Heat. When you heat the engine, and therefore the water in the heads and block, above 212 F, it starts to boil. Mixing the water with ethylene glycol raises that temp. Putting the system under pressure raises the temp at which it boils as well.
So, when you heat water under pressure, you can get it well above 212 F without it boiling...but that heat IS there, and it IS stored in the water itself....since your gauge was into the "unknown" territory, the coolant (in whatever mix) was well above the boiling point.
When you opened the cap, you released the pressure...you lowered the boiling point, so now, all that water/coolant was well ABOVE the new boiling point...and all that coolant boiled...not boiled like a pot on a stove, where it's in equilibrium.
A pot on a stove is balanced, heat comes in from the burner/element...and heat goes out in the form of water changing phase, from liquid to gas (steam). The heat required to get a liquid to change phase is known as the latent heat of vaporization. Heat goes into the pot...and heat is taken away by the water that changes phase. That's equilibrium...that's mild.
To reach equilibrium in your now hot coolant, a LOT of coolant must undergo that phase change since it is ALL above the boiling point. In fact, so is the block and so are the heads...so that heat will continue to keep the coolant hot until enough coolant absorbs the heat (via phase change) that it reaches equilibrium at the boiling point of the coolant, or all the coolant is driven off/boiled and the equilibrium is hot metal above the boiling point, slowly releasing heat into the air.
In fact, this is how the Navy gets steam catapults to work. A large tank of water is heated, in a closed container (so, under pressure) to several hundred degrees. A massive amount of heat is stored. When the steam valve to the catapult tubes is opened, all of that water undergoes a massive, immediate phase change. The result is enough steam pressurizing the catapult tubes to accelerate a 70,000# airplane from zero to 200 MPH in about 2 seconds.
Moral: NEVER open the radiator cap if the system has been under pressure. It's not just a case of "releasing the pressure". You release all that heat instantly, and you WILL get a geyser of superheated coolant that will continue to erupt until ALL the heat is gone.
Originally Posted By: GreeCguy
And finally, yes, I'll be swapping out the radiator.
Thank you all for your concern and yes, it was a learning experience, especially about instant boiling point - no wonder those Jets take off so fast as when that water shot out of the rad, I did some pretty quick running myself. When I say I know pressure etc, I should say I know the red neck way. Much like the old saying goes, my last words one day will probably be "watch this."
And yes, the ole gal now has a new radiator. It was so pretty and shiny, I almost hated to put it in the car. I kinda wanted to hang it on the wall in the living room for a least a few days, but the wifey wouldn't let me. Women - you know what I mean guys?
Oh, and BTW - I wasn't walking around drinking tea - I was sitting and drinking tea - there's a difference 
Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit
Originally Posted By: GreeCguy
And finally, yes, I'll be swapping out the radiator.
Astro14: Terrific explanation for the layman!
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