That’s rad…man…
Thursday, September 28th, 2006Yesterday afternoon I did a few miles up the motorway to my mates house. As I slowed down, coming off the motorway, I noticed a nice plume of white smoke in my mirror, followed by the mistakable smell of a hot, empty radiator. At the roundabout steam was engulfing the bonnet. Only 30 seconds to my mates, so I pressed on, slowly. When I arrived, I popped the bonnet, and water was spraying out of a pin hole in the rad, onto the exhaust manifold. Later when it was time to go I filled up and went home, taking it easy. When I got home it hadn’t really lost any water. It only seemed to leak when it was under pressure.
Last night was the latest Old Skool Ford northern meet up. I thought the rad would be ok, so I topped it up and flew down the M1 to the pub. When I arrived there was that smell again, plus the sound of running water. We couldn’t see the hole in the dark car park, but I’d got a containter of water which I used to fill it up, and it used most of it. After the meet, I followed my mate Simon back to his house to top up the rad and the container. He lives halfway between the meeting place and home. When we got there and popped the bonnet and nothing was leeking out. This may have been because Simon said I deposited it over his car a few miles back. We filled it up and the hole was now the size of a knitting needle, as it was p*ssing out. I left the cap undone as I risked the 8 mile drive back. I’d only driven about two miles when I got stuck behind a fully laden (ie: very slow) forty foot artic. I couldn’t pass, but I guessed he was off to the Tesco that was nearby. I guessed right, and he turned in. I wanted to be driving steadily home, not slowly. Relief turned to grief when twohundred feet after the wagon turned off, there was another wagon in front. This one must had just delivered to Tesco. The next few miles of road is covered in about 150 speed cameras, so there was no way I was overtaking. I just had to sit and bear it, hoping the rad didn’t pop. Fifteen tense minutes later I turned off onto my road, and got home safely.
Today, I rang GS Escorts as I was in the area, and was able to pick up a second hand radiator for a tenner. It’s from a 1300 Escort, but hopefully it’ll do the trick until I get a nice ally one in the future. But you know what these ‘put you on’ solutions are like. They turn into permanent solutions. Just like the block of Bars ’stop leak’ I dropped into the rad a few weeks ago. It fixed it for a while….
Posted in Shelling out | No Comments »
bad fit, and is blowing like crazy. Because you can’t get off the shelf exhausts for Zetec powered Anglia vans, I’ve gone to