And poof!!!!! White smoke

[Jean-Marc Dugas]

On the way to take the car to winter storage last evening I startedf to smell that antifreez smell. I thought "I wonder who is the poor bugger with an antifreez leak". Shortly thereafter I notices the dreaded whte smoke starting to gently flow from the front driver side of the hood. Not connecting the dots really quickly I thought "Mmmmm. what is that white smoke?" Seconds later the lightbulb came on and I started to look for a spot to safely pull over.

As I pulled over into a parking lot the gentle stream of white smoke quickly turned into a big clowd of white smoke and the Engine Temp light came on.

I turned off the car and when I opened the hood this is what I saw. The top radiator hose slid off the top radiator outlet and emptied all of the antifreex into the engine conpartment.



It looks like that wnen the replaced the radiator the top outlet OD was smaller than the OEM radiator hose ID and they inserted that blue "sleeve" to compensate for the OD and ID difference. My guess is that the lack of friction between the blue sleeve and the radiator hose caused the hose to slide off.

I took a cab home, got my tools and stopped at Canadian Tire to get a couple of jugs of antifreez. Got back to the car, reinstalled the hose, filled the radiator and crossed my fingers as I turned the key to start the engine.....it started right away and was running smooth with no signs of damage.

I was extremely lucky that this occured in town driving at low speed. I can just immagine if this occured on the highway driviong at highway speed, I might not have been able to safely pull over and save the engine.

I will be calling the radiator shop today to discuss the use of this method to secure the radiator hose to the radiator.......

 

[John ED Renstrom]

My guess is the person that they had put it in did not realise it was a shipping protector for the upper nipple. But that's one way to clean out the block. My bet is you better check that lower one. It will empty things out a lot faster.

 

[Jean-Marc Dugas]

I spoke with the radiator shop yesterday, and they confirmed that the blue sleeve was a space they installed to compensate for the difference between the OD of the radiator outlet and the ID of the radiator hose.

I suggest that anyone who had their radiator changed check to see if they have this set-up and keep an eye on it.

I told the service manager that I was now very uncomfortable with this setup and that we need to consider what we could do to prevent it from happening again. I have no interest in having this happening again.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

I would remember this, and my next radiator would be replaced by someone else. The only reasion the inlet would be to small is they were using a generic radiator not one designed for the car.