This weekend was decidedly two of the latter. Well, it started out well enough. Bill D and I made a jaunt out to Crazy Ray's to see what's what. I scored a radiator for Heavy D and Bill scored a washer bottle, a speedo out of an old wreck and a dome light for his Saturn. Then back to Bill's place to install my spare starter in Peer Pressure. Voila, that did the trick and she started right up. Bill's problem solved.
Then the tide turned. Hanky dripped a little trans fluid at Bill's place and at Duesenbergs when we went to lunch. But when I got home the whole bottom of the truck was covered in trans fluid. It was dripping from EVERYWHERE. Ugh. So, the only thing that I think it could be is the input shaft seal. The one that I just changed and had given me so many headaches. I must have f***ed it up after all. OK, so trans has to come back out again. Deal with it.
Bright and early this morning, I put the 'new' radiator in Heavy D, filled it up and...
... it leaks. #)($#&%)*$%&$%$*$%*^!!!!!!
But, always hopeful, I'm thinking tha maybe, just maybe that water (yes, only water) is left over from having hosed off the engine bay before fiting it up (yeah, I know, why did I decide to hose off the engine bay before I tested this read? Hey, I was confident). So anyway, I let it sit a while, go hear my brother sing some opera, whip up a pot of chili, then go back out to fire it up. Hmmm, idling nicely and no sign of a leak. Might be lucky. Maybe it's just not hot enough yet, so I do for a 4 mile loop around the neighborhood. It's running good, sounding nice... until I get about half way. Something isn't right. Look at the temp guage and it's climbing fast towards 250. %&$@$&%&!!!
Get it to a place where I can pull over and stop and already I can see it's leaking. Pop the hood and see it's thrown the fan belt - again! What the f***? OK, it wasn't the mandatory two belts, but that one belt was as tight as I could get it. Of course, I didn't put any tools in the truck, so I couldn't get it back on. So I waited until the temp dropped back down below 190 and limped it home. When I get there I walk around front and can see clearly one of the leaks, shooting right out through the grill.
So, I'm back to 0 Internationals that are road worthy. Time to take my original radiator to the shop and just have a pro fix it.
Then some time this week I'll start unbuttoning Hanky's transmission.
Frustration is setting in...
Weekend Update, 11/18
1 day ago
2 comments:
Well, at least I have a non-leaking trans combo for you. I wish I could say the same about a radiator!
Just thinking aloud here, but maybe you should take both radiators to the shop? One might be a better fixer-upper candidate than the other. Alternatively you could get them both fixed so you have a spare for next time. (I know, easy for me to say when it's not my money. :)
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. The original is leaking from a seam in the tank. The other is leaking from a few places in the core.
I think I'm done trying to find a solution with a used rad. Time to go to the shop and get one fixed up properly.
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