To preface, I've been trying to narrow down a slow coolant leak in my 2004 Honda Civic VP (Value Package). Never noticed any milky oil or white smoke, so my friend did a pressure test on the coolant system. Ended up having a hairline crack in the top of the radiator and that was where the coolant was slowly leaking out under pressure. Knowing this, I had intended to have the radiator replaced in the next week or two and just keep doing what I had been doing for weeks. Checking the coolant level daily and adding accordingly. Well, I needed to go some distance and some elevation gain involved this last weekend, so gave it a fresh oil change, and about 2/3rds the way there....blammo. The radiator completely busted and the car lost full power. I pulled over and shut it down immediately. Once I got towed back into town, I took these photos/videos. Any idea how bad off I am? The way the engine doesn't even want to turn over is really concerning me. I also do not see any belts, including timing, missing or broken.

Wednesday the 19th Update
On the 2nd try of starting, I noticed it sounded more like a dead battery than anything, sure enough, I hooked up my charger and the battery was only at 7.6v. Charging now and wondering of trying to start tomorrow to make sure the engine isn't toast. What I am confused about is how would that have happened. Did my alternator fry in the process? Bad luck timing?


Here is a photo/video breakdown....well of the breakdown. hah.


This photo shows the immediate aftermath right where the crack was in the radiator.


The "goop" came through the known crack on top of the radiator, to the right of the radiator cap.

This is a closer view of the goop that came out of the crack in the radiator:


Slightly closer up and without the radiator cap on.

This is the state of the oil on Sunday after the tow truck dropped me off. Mind you this was just changed the night prior.


This oil is maybe 12 hours old, but a view of the dipstick right after it was dropped off.\

Below are the following videos I've taken both on Sunday and today (Wednesday):

• Overview Video from Sunday
• Coolant Dripping from Leak after topping off
• 1st Attempt to Start on Sunday After Topping Off the Coolant and Making Sure the Oil Level was Good
• 2nd Attempt to Start this afternoon

Any advice/ideas? Thanks guys!

 

Thursday Update

After talking with a couple of people, they advised me to check the transmission fluid and make sure that "peanut butter ****" isn't in there. Luckily it is not. This is what the tranny fluid looks like:


Transmission fluid dipstick. More color reference on the towel in the background

The absolutely bizarre part I really don't understand is that I charged my battery (which was perfectly fine prior to this) and found out it is completely shot.

The battery was about mid-7 volts yesterday, so I put the charger on for 24 hours. Telling me the battery is shot. Voltage is the same level as yesterday.

I'm really at a loss here and the more I pry, the more questions I have. I am thinking my next steps would be borrow a battery and do a compression test, then check the timing belt's condition. If anyone else has any other ideas, literally any, let me know! hah.

Thanks again!

 

Battery is going to be unrelated to anything that you've had going on with the cooling system.

Transmission fluid also has absolutely nothing to do with the cooling system and there's no reason at all those fluids should ever interact with one another, unless there's something about auto trans that I'm unfamiliar with, but I don't think so.

Nothing that you've described happening should damage anything with the timing belt.

You're probably overthinking your current situation. You can start the car as it is, with no radiator, just to make sure it starts up ok. Obviously do not let it idle for long or drive it anywhere since you have no cooling system.

Aluminum engines, especially (from my experience) those 7th gen D series engines are very prone to warping the head when they've been overheated. I wouldn't worry about this now, I'd focus on getting a new radiator installed and the car back on the road, but if you notice overheating or leaking coolant after the new radiator installation you may want to consider a leakdown test to check for any headgasket issues.

Edit: I would recommend doing a "radiator flush" when you're installing the new one just to try to get as much old buildup and whatever that putty crap is out of your water jackets & hoses before buttoning up the new one and adding fresh coolant.