[Mgs] heater core leak advice

Aaron Whiteman awhitema at panix.com
Sat Jul 14 10:32:08 MDT 2007


Well, crap.

Here it is, one week from tomorrow and I leave for Petaluma.  Trip is  
all planned, I've figured out where I'm staying along the way, I've  
made arrangements to board the cat, etc...

I tried to take the car out to the local farm shop I've used on  
occasion to do maintenance and inspections.

So of course, there's a truck without wheels on the lift.  Undaunted,  
I did some tuning.  I managed to make the timing worse.  Runs fine,  
but now it runs hot.  Whoops, I'll try again when I'm not frustrated.

While I had the filters off the carbs, I happened to look up, and saw  
this:

http://www.panix.com/~awhitema/tmp/P1000071.jpg

Yup, wet green stuff leaking out of my heater.  That certainly  
explains the odor of coolant I've occasionally smelled in the past.   
I don't know how long it's looked like that, but it's a fairly new  
development.

Ugh.  I'm leaving in a week.  I don't have the time or energy to fix  
a heater core.  I *know* what that involves, and I'm not ready to  
take that on.

So, given that I'll be driving 2100 miles in 9 days, much of it on  
lonely roads in eastern Oregon, I don't think it's a good idea to  
pretend I didn't see the leak and just carry extra coolant.

So my options are now
  * bypass it and hope I don't need the heater (remember, car has  
shown a propensity to run hot)
  * run some of that radiator snake oil stuff
  * take the Subaru instead

Advice?

-- 
Aaron Whiteman -- http://www.panix.com/~awhitema/
  '75 MGB (red for now), HIF4 carbs
  '06 Subaru Impreza Outback

[demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pkcs7-signature which had a name of smime.p7s]


More information about the Mgs mailing list