Well, I took the car in last Thursday for the repairs. That makes it one
week with the car and one without. They looked at it and told me they could
not remove the old pipes in one piece unless they cut the frame member
that's in the way. They suggested using something flexible (like Jaan suggested)
to go through the tunnel What they came up with was this high pressure
hose that's used in fire engines. It was kind of spendy but cheaper than
the stainless steel braided lines they were considering ($80/foot!). I
picked up the car yesterday and they showed me the old pipes that they
cut out a foot at a time. You could see the marine epoxy on the bottom
and the holes that had developed. The coolant had worked its way under
the epoxy lifting it and finding a way out. They said that with the coolant
passing opposite ways in the separate tubes electrolysis developed corroding
the aluminum. I grabbed a couple of chunks of the old pipe and a chunk
of the new stuff. They said (Richard, who did it) that they used small
pieces of the aluminum pipe to join them together plus a piece of formed
radiator hose to make the turn in the back. Regular hose clamps in front
and a different clam in back. He told me to bring it in in a week to check
it out. John said the cv boot looked OK to him and that he wouldn't worry
about it. The grease that had been thrown was probably from excess when
it was installed. I picked up the car yesterday at lunch and left the Cadillac
on their lot. I drove it a little bit and then back to work. It was nice
to be driving it again. After school we had our last football game so I
drove over to Safeway for some pop for half time. The kids all got to see
it then and were impressed. They loved it! After the game it was home for
dinner and then a drive. We headed up Lone Pine rd (watch out for the big
pothole next time!) and out to North Phoenix rd. As we approached Phoenix
the temp started climbing. I had noticed it was already running 5-10 degrees
warmer than usual, a fact I attributed to the loss of cooling the aluminum
pipes may have provided plus the mixture of more anti-freeze vs. water.
But now it was climbing past the zero in 90ƒ c. I slowed an turned back
for home figuring I'd rather overheat a little closer to home. I had to
pull it over by Ruhl park and let it cool down. But after a short break
it restarted and cooled down quickly. We then decided to drive around and
see if would heat again. Through town, back out N. Phoenix Rd, a simulated
traffic stop in the Pear Tree lot, back to Medford, through town, freeway
to Talent, highway back to Medford and it's doing fine. We figure it's
cured and head home. Then, going down Biddle it started overheating by
Dairy Queen (guess those Blizzards weren't cold enough). We were getting
used to this now. Pull over, cool off, head home - just a few blocks now.
Get home and it wants to heat again. Being that there were many times the
temp would go up and then come back down it was clear the fans were working.
It could be a stuck thermostat or the fans not working. I like to put in
one of those free-flow thermostats anyway so I'll check into that.
I did drive it again today and found it did fine but conveniently started
warming up n my driveway. A quick check up front revealed the fans to be
quietly resting just waiting to be called to action. Looks like a fan problem.
Guess it works sometimes - could be a loose connection - I'll hunt it down
now!
Diary
57,409
10/21/97 
