svtguy
02-11-2007, 06:53 PM
As I found out by searching, the cause of my troubles was likely to be air pockets in the cooling system. And the fix beeing to bleed the system of this air via the cap/plug on the crossover pipe just in front of the alternator while the car sits on a slight upward angle, add more coolant into the cap/plug opening and bleed again with the cap loosely screwed back on untill the hiss and bubling stops.
After I did all this my heat was blowing HOT again. The needle on the temperature gauge was back where it belonged, pointing right at the 20 mph mark. And the coolant level is full again.
The one problem I ran into was when I loosened the cap a bit too much and the pressure shot it off. I felt pretty stupid and now there was a nice big mess everywhere. I cleaned it up right away though. I couldn't have coolant all over the fenders and everything so the whole front end and engine compartment got a nice bath.
But yes I do have a question or two in case you've been wondering. How does ones coolant level get so low? A leak right? Sounds plausible. I did in fact see a small puddle on the driveway the day before so OK, I'll go with the leak explanation.
I guess my other question is how do our cooling systems just up and decide to start leaking coolant? Is there some common/typical cause for this? Bad or loose hoses perhaps?
But the biggest question on my mind right now has to be, did I really fix the actual problem? I'm probably still going to have a leak. Maybe all I did was buy myself a little time. How much time I wonder, a day, a week, month?
Can anyone suggest how to find and fix this leak? I looked for it but I'm no mechanic as you can all probably tell. Should I just take it to the dealer and let them figure it out? Its still under warranty so I'm sure it would be covered. Your thoughts please. And my apologies for the long post with dumb questions.
After I did all this my heat was blowing HOT again. The needle on the temperature gauge was back where it belonged, pointing right at the 20 mph mark. And the coolant level is full again.
The one problem I ran into was when I loosened the cap a bit too much and the pressure shot it off. I felt pretty stupid and now there was a nice big mess everywhere. I cleaned it up right away though. I couldn't have coolant all over the fenders and everything so the whole front end and engine compartment got a nice bath.
But yes I do have a question or two in case you've been wondering. How does ones coolant level get so low? A leak right? Sounds plausible. I did in fact see a small puddle on the driveway the day before so OK, I'll go with the leak explanation.
I guess my other question is how do our cooling systems just up and decide to start leaking coolant? Is there some common/typical cause for this? Bad or loose hoses perhaps?
But the biggest question on my mind right now has to be, did I really fix the actual problem? I'm probably still going to have a leak. Maybe all I did was buy myself a little time. How much time I wonder, a day, a week, month?
Can anyone suggest how to find and fix this leak? I looked for it but I'm no mechanic as you can all probably tell. Should I just take it to the dealer and let them figure it out? Its still under warranty so I'm sure it would be covered. Your thoughts please. And my apologies for the long post with dumb questions.