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Bret
Yoda
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Well sort'a. Its really a recap of a tragic sequence of events that where linked to one another. Not a rant really, but be warned it is kind of long and ugly.
Lets just call this particular submission (as there’ll be others I’m sure)…
The "Domino effect".
Oh sure I've had *other* problems & issues with my Porsche 928 that I’ve more or less muddled through. But in all my days of working on cars – no group of problems seemingly un-related cause me so much heartache. All of the following transpired over the last year give or take a couple of months.
At first I’m having electrical issues – Alternator not putting out the expected current. Voltage dropped below 12Vs with all accessories on. But the problem became clear when my alternator just up & quit on me. Replacing the Alternator everything seems ok so I figured I had that problem licked. (Yea – you’d like to think so wouldn’t ya?)
Moving forward a few months I started noticing an oil stains on my concrete that seemed to be *engine* oil – but despite many hours under the car, I could never find the offending leak. Not an excessive amount mind you – but the stain was getting progressively worse as time went on. But fresh spots only appeared after the engine had been ran for a time & reached normal operating temperature. But as hard as I tried I was never able to put my finger on the seal or gasket that was leaking. In fact standing in front of the vehicle the whole right side of the engine & in fact most of the suspension on that side of the engine bay seemed really grimy. Not a lot of oil mind you just greasy & grimy with no telltale source. Short term fix – bought a drip pan or parked in the street.
I spend the next several months trying to sort out the source of the oil leak when I start noticing my dash coolant warning light coming on from time to time. Well sure enough the coolant was a little low but only enough to drop below the sensor in the expansion tank. I’d simply top it off and wouldn’t see the problem for another week or two. Not water in the oil? No water or steam visible? Perplexing, isn’t it?
It wasn’t until a little over two months ago that I discovered that the cause of the coolant loss was that one of my radiator’s end caps had a teeny tiny pin-hole leak. Shazbot! (not the real vernacular used /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif ) At temp the pin hole was spraying directly on the right side of my engine bay and soaking the Alternator (possible cause of the failure? Doh!) as splattering the power steering fluid all over the place on that side of the engine bay.
Fast forward after replacing the radiator (New C&R Aluminum unit) I decide it was wise to replace the coolant hoses and the thermostat too. Well in hind sight perhaps that wasn’t the best decision I ever made, because after about a month or so of dealing with seized & broken bolts in the thermostat cross over and one of the adjoining heads - I finally got everything back together again.
I know, I know - some of you are wondering – “but what about the oil leak?” Well after I’d gotten it all back together again I spent a day just cleaned and wiped down everything in the engine bay. The thought being that with everything cleaned up – it should be easier to locate the leak. Especially now that the coolant wasn’t basically power blasting the oil all over the right side of the engine compartment anymore.
Well I was partially correct. Turns out that there is another source of *oil* in that area that I’d neglected to check. I’d forgotten that in between all this I’d had to add some power steering fluid a while back and to the PS reservoir. I wrongly assumed that the steering rack had a minor leak because the fluid level stayed pretty steady over the following months. I figured at the time that I had bigger fish to fry for now and would address that problem later never realizing that my oil leak wasn’t OIL at all, but was actually Power steering fluid.
Turned out the leak was the PS hose from the bottom of the reservoir to the PS pump. But it only leaked (weeped really) when the pump was on. The hose was basically just old & cracked towards the top – kind of out of sight and not openly apparent to the casual observer unless you stuck your head right down in there. This hose passed within an inch of where the Radiator pin hole leak was & was actually blasting the leaking fluid all over the right side of the engine, the PS pump and the “Alternator”.
Saga over & doing the math those two little leaks cost me a lot of money & valuable time better spend driving my cars.
Is there a moral of the story. Naw just that lesser (or smarter maybe) men would’ve simply given up and cut their losses.
Ok Doc & Tony or anybody else – here’s your chance to say “I told ya’ so”.
I still love my Shark! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbsup.gif
Lets just call this particular submission (as there’ll be others I’m sure)…
The "Domino effect".
Oh sure I've had *other* problems & issues with my Porsche 928 that I’ve more or less muddled through. But in all my days of working on cars – no group of problems seemingly un-related cause me so much heartache. All of the following transpired over the last year give or take a couple of months.
At first I’m having electrical issues – Alternator not putting out the expected current. Voltage dropped below 12Vs with all accessories on. But the problem became clear when my alternator just up & quit on me. Replacing the Alternator everything seems ok so I figured I had that problem licked. (Yea – you’d like to think so wouldn’t ya?)
Moving forward a few months I started noticing an oil stains on my concrete that seemed to be *engine* oil – but despite many hours under the car, I could never find the offending leak. Not an excessive amount mind you – but the stain was getting progressively worse as time went on. But fresh spots only appeared after the engine had been ran for a time & reached normal operating temperature. But as hard as I tried I was never able to put my finger on the seal or gasket that was leaking. In fact standing in front of the vehicle the whole right side of the engine & in fact most of the suspension on that side of the engine bay seemed really grimy. Not a lot of oil mind you just greasy & grimy with no telltale source. Short term fix – bought a drip pan or parked in the street.
I spend the next several months trying to sort out the source of the oil leak when I start noticing my dash coolant warning light coming on from time to time. Well sure enough the coolant was a little low but only enough to drop below the sensor in the expansion tank. I’d simply top it off and wouldn’t see the problem for another week or two. Not water in the oil? No water or steam visible? Perplexing, isn’t it?
It wasn’t until a little over two months ago that I discovered that the cause of the coolant loss was that one of my radiator’s end caps had a teeny tiny pin-hole leak. Shazbot! (not the real vernacular used /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif ) At temp the pin hole was spraying directly on the right side of my engine bay and soaking the Alternator (possible cause of the failure? Doh!) as splattering the power steering fluid all over the place on that side of the engine bay.
Fast forward after replacing the radiator (New C&R Aluminum unit) I decide it was wise to replace the coolant hoses and the thermostat too. Well in hind sight perhaps that wasn’t the best decision I ever made, because after about a month or so of dealing with seized & broken bolts in the thermostat cross over and one of the adjoining heads - I finally got everything back together again.
I know, I know - some of you are wondering – “but what about the oil leak?” Well after I’d gotten it all back together again I spent a day just cleaned and wiped down everything in the engine bay. The thought being that with everything cleaned up – it should be easier to locate the leak. Especially now that the coolant wasn’t basically power blasting the oil all over the right side of the engine compartment anymore.
Well I was partially correct. Turns out that there is another source of *oil* in that area that I’d neglected to check. I’d forgotten that in between all this I’d had to add some power steering fluid a while back and to the PS reservoir. I wrongly assumed that the steering rack had a minor leak because the fluid level stayed pretty steady over the following months. I figured at the time that I had bigger fish to fry for now and would address that problem later never realizing that my oil leak wasn’t OIL at all, but was actually Power steering fluid.
Turned out the leak was the PS hose from the bottom of the reservoir to the PS pump. But it only leaked (weeped really) when the pump was on. The hose was basically just old & cracked towards the top – kind of out of sight and not openly apparent to the casual observer unless you stuck your head right down in there. This hose passed within an inch of where the Radiator pin hole leak was & was actually blasting the leaking fluid all over the right side of the engine, the PS pump and the “Alternator”.
Saga over & doing the math those two little leaks cost me a lot of money & valuable time better spend driving my cars.
Is there a moral of the story. Naw just that lesser (or smarter maybe) men would’ve simply given up and cut their losses.
Ok Doc & Tony or anybody else – here’s your chance to say “I told ya’ so”.
I still love my Shark! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbsup.gif
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