Exe

Take a look. Tell me what you think.

I'm driving down the highway and boom! Coolant sprays all over my windshield. Look down and my car is WAY overheated. Pull to the side and turn off the engine (which is idling fine, just hot). The top radiator hose blew up. Giant hole in it. The radiator is ok. Coolant all over my engine compartment.

The serpentine belt broke because one of the bearings in the tensioner broke. So I slowly move it off the road into a residential area. There were no engine idling problems. Sounded fine.

Today I went out and replaced my hose (the tensioner hasn't come in yet), and noticed that the plastic piece the hose goes over (on the radiator side) was broken off at the top. When I tried attaching the hose it broke off at the botom too. I suspect it was melted through. I got done replacing the hose and tried to start it up (I needed to move it to a place it wouldn't get towed until I could replace the tensioner) and the thing starts idling insanely. Jumps up to 2k, then back down to 1k. It drives fine for the distance I move it. Then it starts idling weird again when I put it in park.

I'm guessing I blew a head gasket. I'm still in denial. What makes me wonder is how well it ran after the hose blew. Wouldn't I notice the problem right away? Is that piece of radiator plastic just floating around in my engine now? Could it be the problem? How hard is it going to be to replace a blown head gasket?

Thanks for any help I can get.

VVT-i

Welcome to CL.

Your belt tensioner may locked up and when the belt broke off, its may spun around and broke your radiator neck( the part that your radiator hose attached to). Just go with the most obvious repair first and go from there. I mean, replace the tensioner, belt, hoses that broke off and the readiator( because the neck broke off).

Exe

Thanks for the welcome, you guys looked like you knew what you were talking about

There was still plenty of neck on the radiator to clamp it. Would you still recommend replacing the radiator?

got_trd

Ouch... sorry to hear that man..

YZFR1

The idleing problems were probably due to air being in the cooling system...... It should be fine once you seal it up and fill it back up


Good luck!!!

Dan

/Aerostar\

iTrader: (2)

Good god thats alot of ***** to go wrong at once. Replace the easier things first and then once you fill up coolant make sure to "burp" the system

hyperopt

No need to change if it isn't leaking.

aliga

iTrader: (147)

i think your overreacting, if you had a blown headgasket you would see smoke out the exhaust, coolant in the oil, etc.