it never rains , its pouring

[maglite1]

just been out to shop in car and when i pulled back up i noticed a line of water down the road , where the bottom radiator hose connects to the radiator on to the plastic pipe that forms part of the radiator has split , guys i need a quick fix as i have to pick son up at 10 am 30 mile away .

i have few ideas going round in head , 1 is to wrap it with insulation tape to form a seal then wrap it in duct tape to hold the pressure , idea 2 is to put a big lump of body filler round it till i have time to take the rad off , my other plan is to get cordless soldering iron on it and melt over the crack and then either body filler or duct tape , ill have as many cans of water with me as i can get hands on .

my other question would be will i do any harm by leaving header tank lid off to stop coolant system pressurising or will this stop the circulation , my x will think im taking piss if i say car has broke down again . any advice appriciated .

[steve_earwig]

Oh christ, I dunno, it depends on the break I think either of these will work but only temporarily. Maybe insulation tape is the worst 'cos it'll be hard to get it dry enough.Taking the cap off will stop it pressurising yes, but it'll boil cooler so you'll loose lots out the reservoir. I realise you can't avoid it so do your best, take as much water as you can carry and stop and let it cool down before you tip water in it.

[maglite1]

i have took the drain plug out the bottom of rad so its drained down in morning , i have solvent plastic cleaner to clean the plastic up on the section of pipe that has the crack in before i either melt it or tape it up , its exactly where the bottom hose is a push fit into the pipe thats part of radiator end , there is about 3 inches of pipe to get a good wrapping of tape round and then duct tape it to hold the pressure , im just thinking about the body filler idea and if the pipe expands with pressure will the filler just crack off , i might just melt the crack with gas soldering iron then tape it as extra , i have e mailed charl that used to be on here he lives about 2 mile from me and has spare rad in garage fingers crossed he aint threw it out yet .

[jasper5]

I had this on my brother's car.
I used a jubilee clip to squash the plastic bit back onto the metal bit and used a radiator sealer, it lasted nearly 6 months.
If you want to ease off the pressure, remove the thermostat completely.

[maglite1]

just had another idea , i have sealant here dow coring instant gasket , if i clean the plastic up with solvent and put load of instant gasket on it now , then in morning wrap it in insulation tape then duct tape it should hold , just wish i could get car outside my door as i dont have batteries in me maglite lol .

[maglite1]

just cleaned it up with solvent cleaner and put load of instant gasket on it , ill tape it up in morning to hold it in place under pressure and ill remove thermostat .

[maglite1]

this is the stuff ive put on it , sorry its ebay link but the details of the stuff all on the listing , should hold with tape , i have had e mail back of charl he thinks he has radiator in garage still and is dropping it off tomorrow , from memory its same rad , i took it off his 2.0 exec when we scraped it , prey its the same .

[maglite1]

forgot the link lol http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Dow-Corning-Auto- ... 44ff9343e4

[alladdin]

clean all that cack back off and use body filler onto a dry surface, that will do it. i doubt the sealer will work on a surface leak and tape will do nothing. i have patched rads with plastic padding in the fins, permenant almost. i have a rad on ebay. see forsale section.

[maglite1]

ive cleaned the bit of pipe with solvent cleaner and rubbed the dow coring in the crack then formed a bump of the sealant over the area to , when its set in morning the tape will just be to hold the sealent in place till sunday when ive took son home , ill take the rad off then and plastic weld the crack and get some jubilee clips and clip some rubber pipe round the pipe thats cracked if the rad i have of mate wont fit , ive blew all my money on doing water pump head gasket and cam belt im down to £20 till next weekend .

[maglite1]

well the sealant has set and i have wraped the pipe in duct tape , its tight so hopefully will hold , im about to go down m56 and m53 to ellesmere port to get my son so preying it holds , loads of supplies in boot , body filler duct tape etc .

i know why the pipe cracked i just noticed when trying to repair it there is a 2 part metal pipe runs alongside the wheel it connects bottom hose to the block somewhere by bulkhead , the metal pupe has the wheel arch liner cliped to it and the pipe also sits in front of bottom pulley bolt ( i remember having to push it out the way to get bottom pulley off ) , oh well fingers crossed . here goes.

[teamster1975]

Oh bloody hell maglite
Fingers crossed your fix holds, it may be worth wrapping some denso tape around for good measure.

[swiss]

In my line of work. the quick fix for holed pipes or split hoses is to clonk a patch of rubber sheet on it and jub clip the living hell out of it. Usually holds until you can get the offending bit replaced, though of course it works better on metal pipe than rubber hose.

Denso tape may be a good idea too, it's what we use for temporary waterproofing though for God's sake wear gloves.

[maglite1]

well the sealant repair has held for 90 mile today , its lost a litre of water but i checked it every so often and it will hold to get son home tomorrow .

i got the radiator of charl aka chaz who used to be on here ( belive you met charl teamster ?) fantastic guy brought radiator round to my house today but unfortunatly its got different end/side to mine , on my rad the bottom hose goes in on bottom left corner as ya look at the car and the top hose goes in on top right .

on the rad charl gave me the top and bottom hose's go in on left of rad as ya looking at front of car , ide be able to make it fit but for 1 thing my bottom hose is push fit connection and top hose is jubilee clip , on rad i got of charl the bottom hose is push fit and so is the top , does anyone know if the push fit terminal on the hose can be fitted to my top hose? .

failing that once i take son home tomorrow i plan to take rad off on monday and plastic weld the crack , also im going to take cam covers off and re tighten the head , i also plan to check the timing belt tension again as i can hear what can only be described as either vibration in track belt or cam belt and occasionaly soulds like a belt is touching cam belt casing , im looking to check over all work done last week to see if i can figure why car is hard to start after night layed up .

[DiscoPol]

Good news on the car holding up mate, well done.

hope you get everything else sorted too, you have put a lot of hard work blood sweat and tears into that thing mate,
your son should be very proud of you, you did all that so you can have your time together, without wanting to sound too emotional about it......

Hats off to you sir!!


DiscoPol