Ok so im left for work from my house yesterday. I work at outback steakhouse as a Cook and an occasional Kitchen manager. I left for work and i got to the red light in front of my work. When i stopped a huge cloud of white smoke kept going. I was like Oh **** thats me. SO i lean up and see smoke billowing out of my engine bay. I turned off the A/C and turned on the outside air button. and i smelled the ugly smell of coolant burning. I was like, oh ****. I looked at my guages and i was running really, really hot. So i pick up enough momentum to get moving and i shut off my engine. i coasted into my work parking lot and grabbed the nearest spot i could. I get out and pop the hood. Huge cloud of white smoke. I looked and it just burning coolant off of the tranny. it blew it all over the shroud fan, radiator, intake, heater core, firewall. everything along that level of the engine bay. So i went into work and asked if i could go home and he said sure. so i called AAA and they came and towed my **** back to my house. So after about 45 mins i get the car towed and another 30 mins i get back to my house. When i go into the house i start lookign for my cell phone. I can't find it. so i called the tow guy and asked him if my phone was in the car. It wasnt. When i went out to my car i saw it laying on the gravel. when i jumped out of the truck. it got ran over by the tow truck when he pulled out of the driveway. Damn!


I let the radiator cool for another 2 hours. and i go outside to start to diagnose the problem. I poured a little coolant into my radiator and started pushing it through by pouring water into it as well.

When i pulled over i thought i had blown the radiator. but when i looked @ it looked like it was stilll sealed. the grates are a little mashed in some areas. but other than that it was fine. SO i poured water into it and i started pouring off of the transmission. so i kept looking and pouring. I finally found it. My heater hose, you know the one between the heater core and the head had it leaking out of it. I finally found it i removed the hose and started looking at it. it looks as if the system had a back up and it swelled, i meaned swelled. b/c you can tell b/c it had a nice plump look to it. It swelled and busted out the bottom of the hose near the clamp by the head. Long story short it cost me a whole 11 dollars to fix it. Went to autozone and got these parts.

2 feet of hose-$2.98
2 clamps-$1.96
1 bottle of Coolant-$8.88

Not having to shell out 200 bucks for a diagnosis and fix from an over priced same day fix garage. Priceless.

anywho, I fixed the hose and filled it back with coolant and ran it for a little while. and went up the road and back w/o any probs. came back checked the hoses, no leaks. It was a beautiful day again. escept it was cold. i swear the temp dropped 20 degrees in 20 minutes.

oh yeah and in case your wondering, i have insurance on my phone. and it should be in later tonight. WHEWWW!! That could have been ugly.

 

I love a happy ending

 

Triple A is a good thing to have.My dad is a tow truck driver and he does a bunch of AAA a day.
Its good the day turned out well though.

 

well that sounds like a horrible day, but at least it ended in a good way

 

What was clogged? Did you reverse flush?

 

I really do not know if it was clogged. after further inspection of the hose it looks as if the hose may have been the original hose from back in 1995. B/c it looks heat ravaged and weakened. so it may have just gotten hot enough to where it finally just burst. i'm not really sure im not a doctor. lol. but seriously. Yes i did reverse flush the system and frontwards flush the system. well actually my dad did that part. i kinda watched. I really didn't pay attention to that part.

 

Glad to hear everything turned out ok.

 

thats just what hoses look like after a while... when its time to change them.

 

my hose burst before in my old accord, nstead of buying a new hose i cut out the hole and put a pipe in and clamped it and then sold the car after i cleaned it up a bit