Chris, Pray first. ;) Water is fine for very short periods. I'd fill it with water and see if it runs good. Check your oil to make sure no coolant got in there and if it did don't go anywhere. Make sure there is enough water/coolant in it before you go though. If I'm wrong someone will yell at me. ;) Steve --- Chris ALmida <chris@FLATBLACK.NET> wrote: --------------------------------- Well the wife calledabout twohours ago to announce that she was stranded in our 84 Westy and therewascoolant everywhere. I found her high on a mountain road near our housewithcoolant dripping from the open slider door. So I proceeded to liftthe rear seat and take the cover off of the rear heater. Sure enough theconnections wherethe hoses and the heater come together were covered in coolant crud andtherewas a large puddle under the heater. I had done a coolant flush overthispast weekend and installed a tee near the front of the Westy betweenthe two heaters;luckily there was already a splice there with a knobbed connector whichIreplaced with the tee. So I took said connector disconnected the hosesfrom the heater and connected them together. This allowed me to startup the Westy, turn it around and then coast it all the way down the hill (5 miles)the tempgauge was buried to the right and the coolant level light was flashingso I ranthe engine as little as possible from the bottom of the hill to a gasstationabout half a mile up the road. It now sits parked in front of thestation.
Myquestion is what best to do next? Should I just fill it with straight coolant still? Can I run it withtheheater by passed until I sort out what part failed and replace it?(Connectingtwo straight hoses with a plastic straight connector creates a slightkink inthe hose) Should I risk limping it home after it cools (maybe twomilesmostly flat a little gradual rise)? Can I just top it off till it#8217;stheright level again or should I now re flush it again to make sure I getpropermixture? What about mixing coolant types? Ifilled it with the sierra brand but live ina small town and can#8217;t get any more until tomorrow when I head out tothe bigcity. The gas station where it is parked sells a brand that is safe foraluminum engines but uses EG instead of PG.
Sorry for all thequestions but Idon#8217;t want to make a bad situation worse and am a little paranoid aboutblowingthe heads or something.
===== Steve croatoa@yahoo.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com |
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