Originally Posted by ARMORPLATED

It finally let go. Thank god I knew it was going to happen and got the parts ahead of time Coolant light came on about 5 miles from home, and it started missing a little bit. I nursed it home, put it straight into the garage, and shut it off.

Originally Posted by enmityst

It finally let go. Thank god I knew it was going to happen and got the parts ahead of time. Coolant light *never* came on, but it started missing a bit on the highway about ten miles from home. As I pulled off at my exit and came to a stop, the temp. gauge ran up almost instantly to 260 or so, and started missing like mad. I tried to nurse it home and put it straight in the garage, but it died at the first stoplight on the overpass, about a mile from home. And dammit, I had my dog in the car with me.

Originally Posted by ARMORPLATED

It only took about 2 hours to tear it all down and clean it up. I was afraid that water got into the lifter valley, so I took off the lower manifold also, which I hadn't planned on doing. It'* a good thing I did! At 162K miles, the lower gaskets were deteriorating also. It was pretty dry though, thank god. (The topside of the lower intake was FULL of antifreeze.)

Originally Posted by enmityst

It only took about twenty minutes for the cops to get there so I could pop the hood and check things out -- I was in the middle of a very busy street blocking a lot of angry traffic, and didn't feel incredibly safe standing in front of my car without a police blockade behind me -- anyone see the season finale of ER? Yeah. So anyway, I popped the hood and noticed that my overflow reservoir was empty, checked the radiator, yep, that'* empty too. My car dumped nearly a full system'* worth of coolant in less than half an hour -- I had stopped for gas prior to all this happening and checked all my fluids. I was afraid that the intake manifold had given way, since I didn't see any steam or smell any coolant from under the hood on the way home, but I figured that it couldn't hurt to refill the system and try and start her again after she cooled down. Of course, I'd left my jug of coolant mix in my garage at home, so the friendly cops watched my car (and dog) while I ran to the nearest gas station.

I come back with two gallons of premixed antifreeze, go into my trunk to get my funnel -- oh yeah, it'* sitting on top of that jug of antifreeze in my garage. Dammit. The wind is really whipping on top of that overpass, and I can't pour from the jug into the radiator to save my life. Coolant everywhere. So I use my hand.

After the radiator was full, I try and crank her up; I get about a second'* worth of cranking followed by silence (except for the starter burning up). Hydrolocked. Dammit. Apparently, one or more of the cylinders was FULL of antifreeze.