- Joined
- Oct 17, 2011
- Messages
- 755
- Reaction score
- 12
- Points
- 18
- Location
- New Joisey
- Vehicle Year
- 1987
- Make / Model
- Ford
- Engine Size
- 2.9L
- Transmission
- Manual
Fortunately this isn't my BII. Isn't even an RBV but some general tips would be helpful to find if this is worth fixing now..
My daughters 97 Nissan Altima with 2.4L "died" while she was coming home from work last week. She claimed the engine wasn't running right and started smoking. Black smoke.
To cut to the chase, I found the radiator has developed a 5 inch long crack along the top, no coolant visible is reservoir, none visible in the top of the radiator when I looked in.
So my question is, before I go about replacing the radiator, are there any worthwhile/prudent checks I should do before making that investment?
Before discovering the radiator problem I had tried starting the car to see if it would start since it wasn't running for her at the time. It started and idled just fine.
By the crack there were some thin melted plastic (radiator is plastic) as if the radiator saw some extreme heat. I am actually wondering if radiator failure may have been secondary event. Could head gasket have gone and hot gasses combined with low coolant damaged the radiator?
Could her pushing the car till it wouldn't have run damaged more?
This car is high miles, engine has lots of blow by, body beat up, been in a couple accidents, this is at end of life, but if a new radiator in it gets another 6 months, heck even three, I am good with that since they are fairly cheap.
What I don't want to do is put a radiator in and find that it can't get back on the road due to some other serious issue.
My daughters 97 Nissan Altima with 2.4L "died" while she was coming home from work last week. She claimed the engine wasn't running right and started smoking. Black smoke.
To cut to the chase, I found the radiator has developed a 5 inch long crack along the top, no coolant visible is reservoir, none visible in the top of the radiator when I looked in.
So my question is, before I go about replacing the radiator, are there any worthwhile/prudent checks I should do before making that investment?
Before discovering the radiator problem I had tried starting the car to see if it would start since it wasn't running for her at the time. It started and idled just fine.
By the crack there were some thin melted plastic (radiator is plastic) as if the radiator saw some extreme heat. I am actually wondering if radiator failure may have been secondary event. Could head gasket have gone and hot gasses combined with low coolant damaged the radiator?
Could her pushing the car till it wouldn't have run damaged more?
This car is high miles, engine has lots of blow by, body beat up, been in a couple accidents, this is at end of life, but if a new radiator in it gets another 6 months, heck even three, I am good with that since they are fairly cheap.
What I don't want to do is put a radiator in and find that it can't get back on the road due to some other serious issue.