radiator broke?

[guspeed]

Hi,

I was driving and I see steam coming out of the engine. I opened the hood and the upper radiator hose, where it connects to the radiator, a chunk of the radiator broke off. How is this possible? How is it for a piece of the radiator just break off?

I mean the radiator where the upper radiator hose connect to broke off.

[suprra_girl]

neglect, no coolant/anti corrosion, age, ppl using it as a lean on when in the engine bay... could be many things... usually i find that the overflow bottle pipe is the first to break off not the main pipe

[JAWS]

The radiator tanks are plastic!
That means the ends of the radiator, which is where the hoses connect.
Plastic tanks work fine, but when a car is overheated the plastic becomes brittle.
A good radiator shop should be able to clean your core and replace the damaged plastic tanks. I think I paid about $50 to have mine fixed when a crack developed in one of the tanks which happened about a year after I'd fixed my BHG.

[Fuzz420]

I blew a 3inch whole out of the bottom of my old radiator.:dunno:

[suprra_girl]

i didn't realise our top tanks were plastic my bad :-p

[jazzsaxman1988]

You'd think that they wouldn't put something so fragile at the front... Seems smart to make them sturdier- but hey, that might just be me.

[IJ.]

Plastic is cheap and easy to automate production saving more $$$

[jazzsaxman1988]

Plastic is cheap

Amen.

[guspeed]

ok so i bought a new radiator and put it in. I flushed the system again, and now I'm running tap water from the garden hose with NO thermostat to see what happen. I plan on flushing it a few more times then putting back on the thermostat.


Does this sound okay or correct? Is it okay to run with tap water for a few days and flush it out and run coolant and disstill water?


thanks.

[IJ.]

The minerals in the tap water will be coating the insides of your cooling system as we speak.... then one day >> ::bhg::

[guspeed]

well then, what should i do?

thanks.

[JAWS]

Not much harm will be done in a few days. You should only use distilled water in your cooling system(along with coolant!).
Distilled water is also the only thing you should use to top up your battery, unless it's sealed.

[IJ.]

Repair/replace radiator

Flush cooling system

refill with either premix coolant or distilled water and coolant concentrate

Burp cooling system

check it daily for a week or so and top up as needed with coolant.

[guspeed]

is the upper radiator hose suppose to be hard to squeeze when the engine is hot?

[koulee]

Yes thats cause there is pressurized and heated coolant building up inside of it. It will balloon up, and if its in poor condition it will pop.

When the car completely cools off you can tap that upper radiator hose and listen to it. If you can hear water whoosing around, you got air bubbles trapped inside of it.