HGZ

okay i was just on my back to work from my damn lunchbreak when i smelled burning coolant while i was driving on the freeway.. so i look at my temp gauge and it was half way up, so i said 'OH ****!!!' and got off the next offramp. while sitting at the light, i could see that nasty swirly white smoke seeping out of my hood, and small amounts coming out of my vents inside the car!

aRGHASDkljas;dj... how ****** embarrassing..

so i pulled into the nearest gas station and popped the hood and took a picture of it right away with my phone:



after trying to figure out where the leak was, i noticed that there was a LOT of coolant sitting on top of my fan and the hoses looked moist where they connect to the radiator (purple oval).. the smoke looked like it was coming out of the hose where it connects to the motor (green circle)..

the motor has about 171K miles on it, and they guy i bought it from a little over two months ago has given me pepboys tune-up receipts that date as late as 06/01/03, nothing past then. he told me i am the 3rd owner and that the car has been babied since day 1. he also told me he took this car on somewhat long roadtrips every now and then, so it sounded like a pretty strong-spirited machine.. he never said anything about problems like this happening, so i'm assuming this is the first time this car has done this.

does this sound like a blown head-gasket??? i know i can't drive it too much longer before really messing it up, but now i'm stuck at work

stasi

I remember when I had what sounds to be a very similar leak. Initially I couldn't figure out where it was because the coolant was burning off on the block or dripping onto the ground. That wound up being the headgasket. After your car sits and cools down, check all of the hoses very carefully. Look for any tiny holes or slits (breaks). If you don't find any, look for discoloring around where the head meets the block (orange or yellow). If you see any coloring, wipe it down, start her up and look for any coolant coming out of the head & block seal areas.

HGZ

okay here's an update, luckily, i was able to drive 3 miles UPHILL back to work without it completely shitting on me..

after letting it sit for awhile, i cleaned all the coolant off my paint and popped the hood. thats when i noticed a HUGE rip in one of the hoses:











the last image is where coolant is sitting on the fan.. do you think all i have to do is replace this hose to fix this whole mess?? because now that i think about it, the white smoke probably came from this hose, and this hose also probably shot coolant all over my fan..

i hope i dont have to replace the head gasket..

LSBOI

feels like dejavu i just had to do the same thing aint that a bitch exactly what hose is that i didnt know i just had auto zone cut me 3ft of hose it works fine now let it run for like 30 mins to make sure tho

full Circling

i highly doubt it's the headgasket. i would replace all the hoses that are the same size as the one that ripped.

HGZ

okay for the time being i just cut the hose shorter to get rid of the tear, and the hose fits back on pretty good with barely enough slack.

so i went and test drove it a couple of blocks, and the temp gauge stopped at 25% (normal), but 3/4 of the way around, the temp gauge starting easing its way back all the way to HOT..!!

WTF?!?!?!

when i got back to work, the hose looked fine, and the coolant level was normal..


i didnt add any water or coolant to my system as the level was already to the MAX line, before AND after the test drive..

do you think its fine and will fix itself?? or could something else be wrong??

sabotage7

just replace that hose and go from there, probably just old....looks like the coolant line to the intake manifold....i put a pretty steel braided line on mine when i replaced it!

Edit: you typed that while i was typing!...hmmm...thats wierd!

HGZ

since this hose broke and i lost a good amount of coolant, does anyone think i might have excess air in the coolant system now thats causing the overheating at this point??

like i mentioned, the hoses now look oK and aren't leaking anymore..

or maybe i should run the engine with the heater on??

man i am stumped..


edit: i also noticed it idles a bit higher than normal now, too..

-DKap-

it might be the air why dont u try bleedin it

HGZ

i just have to take off the radiator cap and turn on the engine until i see bubbles or something, right?? then shut off and top off with coolant and replace the cap??

does the heater have to be on??


thanks so much you guys! i'll be damned if i get stuck here at work on a Friday night..

sabotage7

http://www.team-integra.net/se...D=421....theres a good article on coolant replacing and bleeding! Good luck!

RIPracing

hahaha that just happened to me with a talon i am fixing up... hahaha that a great pic

sabotage7

btw, it looks like you actually have the bleeder screw like i do.....so you can bleed it that way!

NightRiderS2K

Flush your radiator and put fresh coolant. It should solve your problem. If it doesn't then you might have a blown headgasket.

HGZ

sweet, thanks for the link.. i actually was checkin that out earlier, too..

so here's what i did.. i popped off the radiator cap and since i don't have any coolant here at work, i just slowly poured about six or seven 10 oz. cups of sparkletts water down the radiator. i started her up and waited about 5 minutes, and finally noticed the temp staying at 25% like it should. for awhile, smoke came out of the radiator top, but eventually stopped. and with the heater on blast, i finally started to notice heat actually coming out the vents again (i think it was the heater hose that busted..). so i shut her off, poured a couple more cups of sparkletts into the radiator, and put the cap back on. took her through some neighborhoods, and now she's driving like normal again..

looks like i get to flush my coolant system this weekend, eh?

i should find a replacement hose soon too before it craps out on me again..

thanks for all your help, guys.. now i can party hardy w00t

integra714

dude the same **** happened to me like 2 weeks ago my temp went up and coolant was all over luckily I noticed that my radiator had a leak at the top and I just got a new radiator problem fixed. I was so ****** pissed the coolant was all over my engine and my hood.

HGZ

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by integra714 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">dude the same **** happened to me like 2 weeks ago my temp went up and coolant was all over luckily I noticed that my radiator had a leak at the top and I just got a new radiator problem fixed. I was so ****** pissed the coolant was all over my engine and my hood.</TD></TR></TABLE>

for real, now i gotta clean all that **** out. it smells like crap, too.. i can still smell it.. but the good news is, she's still running cool so i ain't complainin'.. haha.

im so glad i got to cut out from work as usual.. and i decided to take the cam with me..

check out some of the shots i took!

like i said, party hardy neeuh.. haha.. it was my homegirl's 21st bday party and she thought i was takin pictures of her but i was taking cool macros..



here are some night shots of my car.. only lighting around was a streetlamp nextdoor, plus i bumped up the levels in PS..



heres a cool one i just had to post from tonight.. i was messing around with the shutter speed and i was just planning on catching streaks from cars passing by on the street ahead of me, but all of a sudden my friend in his 99 LS comes blarin by and i caught his headlights in a 3 second shot!! it came out pretty awesome..!!

stasi

Excellent job on fixing her. When was the last time the coolant system was flushed? I'd do that if it hasn't been done in awhile. As far as hoses are concerned, they get old, they can rot and crack (and eventually break in this case) from the inside out. I was once told it's good to replace your main hoses every 30,000 (maybe it's 60,000?) miles. Always do visual inspections every so often also. You never know, you could catch a problem before an even bigger one is created.

loadedB18C

great job fixing her read all the post! Before I bought my 95 GSR same stuff happened to me and to clean up engine bay of all the coolant I used! SIMPLE GREEN it works really great youll be looking nice in no time!

full Circling

this reminds me, i should replace my heater hoses...

deviusdragger

thats pretty funny cause just yesterday i replaced my radiator in my car. at first my temp would be normal and then it would go to a little past half ways and then drop back to normal. i didnt know what the hell was going on. but then 3 days ago on my way to school, TONS of WHITE smoke coming from my car. pulled over and checked what the hell was going on. all hoses looked fine, so then i turned on the car and saw steam come out of the top of the radiator. so that was a good excuse to get an aluminum radiator. . well hope your problem gets fixed.