This week, while stopped at traffic lights during my drive home from work in
my 'A', someone pointed out the large amount of coolant coming from my car.
I pulled up, opened the bonnet and found that the coolant was spewing out of
the heater control valve. After a while I removed the radiator cap, but by
this time, the temperature gauge was reading about 95psi (yes, the
temperature needle had moved into the oil pressure range!)
I managed to walk to a nearby garage, where I purchased a 2 gallon petrol
tank, filled it with water and got a lift back. Experiments showed that
turning the heater valve on reduced the leakage, so I re-filled the
radiator, turned the heater on and left the radiator cap off.
I figured that if I left the radiator cap off, it could not become
pressurised and would therefore leak less. Since I had spare water, I could
top up to replace any fluid lost out of the radiator.
I carefully drove the rest of my journey home with no further incident. The
car is now back on the road after a quick trip to Pleasanton (Skip Kelsey).
Now, the question: why is it that a 2 year old heater valve fails on a 40+
year old car? I believe the car was punishing me for changing the coolant
only a couple of weeks ago.
Simon
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