Dunno if I posted this here or not. A few months ago, I was driving my Cobra clone home from the gym, and was just backing up into my parking space (I park it at a friend's house a few blocks away). All of a sudden, a ton of SMOKE curls up around the edges of the hood. 
I understandably freak and immediately turn the engine off. I'm thinking my brand-new Cobra engine is on fire, 
I better get the fire extinguisher I keep in the trunk. But the smoke dies down pretty quickly. WTF?
I pop the hood, and nothing is on fire.
I didn't see anything wrong, so what happened? Just then, I hear running water and see a nice flow of SOMETHING running past me near the passenger tire. A quick inspection tells me that my car is pissing coolant all over the ground. I was actually relieved - that wasn't smoke curing around my hood, it was steam.
The radiator is an old Fluidyne I've had for years, I figure it finally cracked and the system depressurized pretty quickly. But as I had no job and no money at the time, I left the Cobra clone parked until now.
I've been back to work for about 7 weeks now (was out for 6 months) and about to get my 3rd paycheck.
Time to spend more $$$$ on the Cobra. I wanted to make sure the problem was the radiator and not a split hose or something really serious, so I dragged my coolant pressure tester tonight over to the Cobra.
The radiator is half empty, so I can't build up any pressure with the tester. So, I fill the radiator back up with water. The radiator level won't stay up at the filler neck, it keeps dropping about a half-inch down past the neck. Got a few air bubbles at first, but not enough to justify the drop in water. Finally, I hear water hitting the concrete. A peek under the car tells me where to look, and I found the culprit. My radiator did not crack - one of the hoses leading from the engine to the heater core POPPED OFF. That explains the sudden coolant depressurization I had.
Now, all my hose clamps were nice and tight. But I put all these hose sleeves over my hoses, to make everything all pretty. Here's a pic of the engine before this happened:
The heater hoses are the red things off to the left of the throttle body. To keep the hose sleeves from fraying, you're supposed to wrap the ends in electrical tape. In some cases, this meant I had the hose clamp directly on the electrical tape. Add in several heat cycles, and the electrical tape softened enough so the hose slipped out from under the clamp. Oops.
Now I get to go through all the hose clamps and remove all the electrical tape under the hose clamps. Good thing is, I don't have to buy another expensive aluminum radiator.
I understandably freak and immediately turn the engine off. I'm thinking my brand-new Cobra engine is on fire, I better get the fire extinguisher I keep in the trunk. But the smoke dies down pretty quickly. WTF?I pop the hood, and nothing is on fire.
I didn't see anything wrong, so what happened? Just then, I hear running water and see a nice flow of SOMETHING running past me near the passenger tire. A quick inspection tells me that my car is pissing coolant all over the ground. I was actually relieved - that wasn't smoke curing around my hood, it was steam.The radiator is an old Fluidyne I've had for years, I figure it finally cracked and the system depressurized pretty quickly. But as I had no job and no money at the time, I left the Cobra clone parked until now.
I've been back to work for about 7 weeks now (was out for 6 months) and about to get my 3rd paycheck.
Time to spend more $$$$ on the Cobra. I wanted to make sure the problem was the radiator and not a split hose or something really serious, so I dragged my coolant pressure tester tonight over to the Cobra.The radiator is half empty, so I can't build up any pressure with the tester. So, I fill the radiator back up with water. The radiator level won't stay up at the filler neck, it keeps dropping about a half-inch down past the neck. Got a few air bubbles at first, but not enough to justify the drop in water. Finally, I hear water hitting the concrete. A peek under the car tells me where to look, and I found the culprit. My radiator did not crack - one of the hoses leading from the engine to the heater core POPPED OFF. That explains the sudden coolant depressurization I had.
Now, all my hose clamps were nice and tight. But I put all these hose sleeves over my hoses, to make everything all pretty. Here's a pic of the engine before this happened:
The heater hoses are the red things off to the left of the throttle body. To keep the hose sleeves from fraying, you're supposed to wrap the ends in electrical tape. In some cases, this meant I had the hose clamp directly on the electrical tape. Add in several heat cycles, and the electrical tape softened enough so the hose slipped out from under the clamp. Oops.
Now I get to go through all the hose clamps and remove all the electrical tape under the hose clamps. Good thing is, I don't have to buy another expensive aluminum radiator.
