More strange things going on. More adventures. Yay.
I noticed that the cold coolant level has risen a bit in the last few days. It went from being at the cold line to being 2 or 3 ribs above it. The top rad hose was under a reasonable amount of pressure too. Tonight, I opened the radiator cap when I got home (engine still hot) and the coolant rose up to maybe 4 ribs from the top of the tank. Strange. So I got a screwdriver and bled the system for a minute or two, if for no other reason than to get the coolant level down to a reasonable level. It did not seem like much air came out really.
Then I drove around for 15 minutes or so, and gave it a few good pulls up to 6k. When I got home, the level was maybe a tiny bit higher, but none of the hoses felt like they had any pressure in them. The heater blows hot and when I was bleeding it coolant was coming out (maybe a little weak compared to what I remember, but it is hard to say). No overheating or anything. The radiator is warm, as are the heater core hoses.
So...my initial (and least pleasant) thought was a head gasket leak or cracked head blowing combustion gases into the system. I'd think that I would have gotten a ton of air out if that was the case though. Granted, I need to let it cool fully and then repeat the bleed so that any air in there has a chance to settle. The most obvious thing would seem to be the pump since the hoses do not seem to get pressurized after driving for 15 minutes, but the heater works and I don't overheat (it is ~45F outside). Can the pump partially fail...like work enough to circulate some water for bleeding and the heater and even to cool the engine when it is not hot out, but be dead enough to not pressurize the hoses? Or does it take a lot longer than 15 minutes to get things up to pressure? Also, I didn't really see the coolant level in the engine dropping as I revved the engine, and that normally occurs right?
In the case of HG leaks and head cracks, I would expect to be losing coolant little by little every time I turn the engine off as it drains into the combustion chamber, and I'd see some white smoke when I started the car. The oil is clean, no goop there either. It was hard to see in the dark, but I didn't notice any bubbling in the expansion tank when I revved the engine and the exhaust does not smell sweet.
My thought is that IF the water pump is crapping out, the rubber hoses have been slowly contracting and pushing coolant back into the system. When I opened it, they fully contracted and pushed a lot of coolant into the tank (and they do expand enough to require a fair amount of topping off for 2-3 weeks after putting new ones in). The pump was replaced in 2011 and has ~15k miles on it now, which seems premature for failure, but it did also sit for about 14 months in an empty system as I dealt with an engine rebuild. A lot of things seemed to get messed up by sitting dry for 14 months.
Any thoughts?
I noticed that the cold coolant level has risen a bit in the last few days. It went from being at the cold line to being 2 or 3 ribs above it. The top rad hose was under a reasonable amount of pressure too. Tonight, I opened the radiator cap when I got home (engine still hot) and the coolant rose up to maybe 4 ribs from the top of the tank. Strange. So I got a screwdriver and bled the system for a minute or two, if for no other reason than to get the coolant level down to a reasonable level. It did not seem like much air came out really.
Then I drove around for 15 minutes or so, and gave it a few good pulls up to 6k. When I got home, the level was maybe a tiny bit higher, but none of the hoses felt like they had any pressure in them. The heater blows hot and when I was bleeding it coolant was coming out (maybe a little weak compared to what I remember, but it is hard to say). No overheating or anything. The radiator is warm, as are the heater core hoses.
So...my initial (and least pleasant) thought was a head gasket leak or cracked head blowing combustion gases into the system. I'd think that I would have gotten a ton of air out if that was the case though. Granted, I need to let it cool fully and then repeat the bleed so that any air in there has a chance to settle. The most obvious thing would seem to be the pump since the hoses do not seem to get pressurized after driving for 15 minutes, but the heater works and I don't overheat (it is ~45F outside). Can the pump partially fail...like work enough to circulate some water for bleeding and the heater and even to cool the engine when it is not hot out, but be dead enough to not pressurize the hoses? Or does it take a lot longer than 15 minutes to get things up to pressure? Also, I didn't really see the coolant level in the engine dropping as I revved the engine, and that normally occurs right?
In the case of HG leaks and head cracks, I would expect to be losing coolant little by little every time I turn the engine off as it drains into the combustion chamber, and I'd see some white smoke when I started the car. The oil is clean, no goop there either. It was hard to see in the dark, but I didn't notice any bubbling in the expansion tank when I revved the engine and the exhaust does not smell sweet.
My thought is that IF the water pump is crapping out, the rubber hoses have been slowly contracting and pushing coolant back into the system. When I opened it, they fully contracted and pushed a lot of coolant into the tank (and they do expand enough to require a fair amount of topping off for 2-3 weeks after putting new ones in). The pump was replaced in 2011 and has ~15k miles on it now, which seems premature for failure, but it did also sit for about 14 months in an empty system as I dealt with an engine rebuild. A lot of things seemed to get messed up by sitting dry for 14 months.
Any thoughts?
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