Something to be concerned about?

[suki243]

Well today I decided to take the mustang for a spin, its been sitting in the garage for a week or so, I decided to go on the freeway, i usually take the streets.
Well when then I came home, parked the car on my drive way, turned off the engine, pulled out keys, went inside, opened up the garage and started the car again, this time i revved it to 3k rpm so my cousin would back away from the car, of course he jumped bak .
Anyway, I proceeded into the garage, and turned the car off. As i began to step out I started hearing a hissing sound, wth... i sit back in the car to check if its the radio, its not, my cousin then says look underneath the car! i was like omg is it on fire!
i look down and a kind of steam is coming from underneath the car, and some type of fluid is dripping down the front valence. WTH!!! well I left it alone, didn't want to touch a steaming engine compartment and undo the hood locks and all, by the time i got to the entrance of the garage the hissing stopped. It kinda sounded like times when people blow their radiator or something with all that steam just blasting out...

Well, i checked later on, and it seems like everything is fine, the fluid evaporated without leaving a stain on the ground, i opened the hood, the radiator hoses seem to be fine, there is a little mess on the side of the radiator where the overflow container should be...

Anyone know what this could've been?
I don't think the water temp gauge in the car works, so i couldn't check the temperature.

 

[reenmachine]

Your radiator has a pressure cap in it. When the pressure inside exceeds a certain limit (printed/stamped on the cap) the relief valve opens and excess pressure is safely bled off. This is usually accompanied by some coolant discharge. Normally this would pass through the overflow tube down onto the ground, but since you have no tube it just squirted out under the hood.

It's no big deal, but you should go get a 50 cent length of rubber hose to hook to the overflow fitting. There are little metal tabs down the side of the radiator to hold it in place as it runs down.

It's not uncommon for an old Mustang to puke a bit after being shut down if it's running warm. When you parked outside the garage you had a radiator full of hot coolant sitting in there with no airflow over it. Then when you revved it up to 3k you quickly built up pressure, which escaped through the overflow.

It would be nice to have a functioning temp gauge so you can see if you're cooling ok. There could be a bigger problem with your cooling system but with no gauge you'll never know until you have a failure.

 

[suki243]

ouch, yah that makes sense to me, it does have a small hose coming off the side of the radiator, and down, there there is some evaporated yellowish residue along the side of the radiator.