Jim_Gruber
Yoda
Offline
I thought I was brilliant yesterday when I found a 45 degree piece of 1" copper elbow to fix a spot on my top hose where it was collapsing and I believe causing car to run hot cruising above 65 for more than 10-15 minutes. Definite narrowing of the hose just past where it connects to the neck on the engine block. I am running a 1098 with a crossflow radiator and the hose doesn't quite line up correctly. Thanks again to Trevor who spotted this problem on Bugsy a while back.
I cut the top hose and with a couple of hose clamps my pinched hose problem was gone. Nice smooth bend for the top hose and all looked right with the world until I picked up the jug of Prestone and began to pour, not realizing the jug I picked up contained old oil not antifreeze. After several loud expletives and self flaggelation, I realized oil was floating on top of the antifreeze, not a lot mind you, probably < 2 oz.
Brillant Idea, use mini shop vac and small tube to vacumn oil off of top of tank. Trip to hardware store and find a small kit of attachments that connect directly to shop vac with a tube that fits right through the radiator top plug. Brillant, get home connect all up, fire up shop vac, oil sucked out and then it happened.
As I went to withdraw the tube from the radiator, the nice, tight fitting, small wand extension, now lubricated with slippery antifreeze, pops off and drops to the bottom of the sidetank on the radiator. Sound of even more expletives and swearing emanate from my garage.
Rather than not worry about several drop of oil mixing with antifreeze which I'm sure would harm nothing. I'm now faced with the prospect of needing to drain and pull the radiator to get a 6' long piece of plastic pipe out of the radiator. I've got one more shot after draining of trying to snag with one of those flex springy things with claws on the end. If that doesn't work will need to jump through hoops and do a real messy job to pull the radiator which on Bugsy also now involves pulling the oil cooler as well. Think I can get by without pulling the front hinged BE Bonnet off but I kept working though engineering exercises all night long trying to figure out a way to not pull the radiator. Hopefully I'll get lucky in a few minutes and simply draining rest of radiator will allow my to see the little plastic tube and allow my to snag it and pull it out.
It was one of those days. On the bright side, Bugsy might now be able to wander away from home and cruise at far higher speeds than I've been able to maintain for the past few years. Addition of BE Bonnet = less airflow to SWA Spridget radiator. Now that hose kink is fixed will be real curious to see if my running hot issues are resolved.
I cut the top hose and with a couple of hose clamps my pinched hose problem was gone. Nice smooth bend for the top hose and all looked right with the world until I picked up the jug of Prestone and began to pour, not realizing the jug I picked up contained old oil not antifreeze. After several loud expletives and self flaggelation, I realized oil was floating on top of the antifreeze, not a lot mind you, probably < 2 oz.
Brillant Idea, use mini shop vac and small tube to vacumn oil off of top of tank. Trip to hardware store and find a small kit of attachments that connect directly to shop vac with a tube that fits right through the radiator top plug. Brillant, get home connect all up, fire up shop vac, oil sucked out and then it happened.
As I went to withdraw the tube from the radiator, the nice, tight fitting, small wand extension, now lubricated with slippery antifreeze, pops off and drops to the bottom of the sidetank on the radiator. Sound of even more expletives and swearing emanate from my garage.
Rather than not worry about several drop of oil mixing with antifreeze which I'm sure would harm nothing. I'm now faced with the prospect of needing to drain and pull the radiator to get a 6' long piece of plastic pipe out of the radiator. I've got one more shot after draining of trying to snag with one of those flex springy things with claws on the end. If that doesn't work will need to jump through hoops and do a real messy job to pull the radiator which on Bugsy also now involves pulling the oil cooler as well. Think I can get by without pulling the front hinged BE Bonnet off but I kept working though engineering exercises all night long trying to figure out a way to not pull the radiator. Hopefully I'll get lucky in a few minutes and simply draining rest of radiator will allow my to see the little plastic tube and allow my to snag it and pull it out.
It was one of those days. On the bright side, Bugsy might now be able to wander away from home and cruise at far higher speeds than I've been able to maintain for the past few years. Addition of BE Bonnet = less airflow to SWA Spridget radiator. Now that hose kink is fixed will be real curious to see if my running hot issues are resolved.