Hi all,
Yes, this is my second car question in the past week, but I have two cars and when it rains, it pours.
Last week I was driving my '86 Olds Cutlass Supreme to work. (Yeah, it’s an old car, but it’s been in my family since '86 and it’s only got 70k miles!) The temperature light came on and I was smelling bad smells, so I turned the heater on high and pulled over till the light went out. Then I stopped at a gas/service station to get some antifreeze/coolant. The service guy was nice enough to come over and talk with me for a second, and said I should check out the thermostat. Got to work and home OK.
The next day I popped the hood for a quick look and noticed that my coolant resevoir was cracked, right around the “max fill cold” line. “Hmm,” I said to myself, “that’s not good.” I’ve probably just gradually lost all the coolant - sound right?
Now that I’m paying attention to this problem, I notice that even though I fill the resevoir to the line with coolant before I drive anywhere, when I go back to check the level later after driving, the resevoir is empty. Also, when I get home after a drive and turn the car off, coolant is bubbling back out of the radiator into the resevoir and out of the crack. This happened today, and the resevoir filled up almost to the top. I turned the car back on, and the coolant went back out the tube to the radiator. When I turned the car off again, nothing went back to the resevoir. Is this description clear? Is this indicative of a bad thermostat?
I’ve ordered a new coolant resevoir and will replace that before worrying about the thermostat. First things first.
One last thing: my radiator cap has this phrase written on it: Align arrows with vent tube. Is this instruction for removing the cap or should the arrows be aligned with the tube while in operation? Right now the arrows and tube are not lined up.
Thanks to you all for replies.