How I lost my faith in my car, part three: Dare to be Stupid
On to Marquette, where got gas and had lunch at the Beef-A-Roo. Someday I’ll have a full review up, with pictures, but let me tell you this: if you ever get a chance to go to the Beef-A-Roo in Marquette, go. It’s really good!
More driving. About 20 miles outside of Bruce Crossing, I look down at the temperature gauge, and notice that it’s a little high, and creeping up. Then suddenly it goes way down again. Creeps up a little, then goes way down. Why is it doing that?
We stopped in Bruce Crossing to use the bathroom and get snacks. It occurs to me that maybe I forgot to close the bleeder valve when I topped off the coolant at Peggy’s house. Did I? Of course! Maybe I should put more coolant in… how much did I lose out the valve? While I’m pondering this, Peggy comes back to the car and offers to drive. “Keep an eye on that heat gauge,” I tell her. Then I promptly fell asleep.
Peggy wakes me up as we’re pulling into a service station in Ironwood (52 miles away). “It keeps climbing. I think it’s because we’re in a city and have to stop more often. Can you get out and check it?”
Groggily I stumble out of the car. It must need more coolant! But the reserve tank is full. Ah, I have a brilliant idea. First, I’ll open the bleeder valve to release the pressure on the coolant system. Done. Then I read the warning on the radiator cap. Warning: Do not open when hot. I touch the cap, it’s not hot. Right. Time to open the radiator cap.
I open it, just a little bit. The reserve tank starts bubbling. Ooookay. I wait for it to stop bubbling. Then start opening it a little more…
FOOOSH!!!!!!
I stumble backwards, blinded by coolant in my eyes. I still can squint a little and I see a tower of coolant streaming from the radiator. I can’t even see how high it goes; it goes too high and OWOWOW MY EYES! Scoop up some fresh snow and mash it in my eyes. Spit spit spit. Ah, my eyes are okay, man this spit spit spit crap is in my beard and OW MY EYES! more snow, spitting, etc.
While I’m stumbling around, covered with coolant from the torso up, Peggy gets out of the car. “You okay?” *grunt* I went back to the car and grabbed a water bottle and dumped a bunch of water in my eyes. Now I can see. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
I wasn’t really awake before, but now I’m awake. Judging from the amount of coolant that flew out of the car, I’m guessing that we didn’t lose an appreciable amount out the bleeder valve. I’m also guessing that the bleeder valve automatically closes itself under pressure, which is why my trick didn’t work.
I look at the hose, and man does it look kinked! Now I understand what happened. The coolant wouldn’t flow through the hose very effectively until the pressure built way up, forcing it through and forcing new coolant into the engine. Maybe we can take it off and unkink it somehow and get it to work. Peggy thinks that maybe there’s an auto parts store nearby we could get another hose from, maybe we could just get another hose.
Using our brand new screwdriver, we get the hose off. Oh, but wait a minute… where did our radiator cap go? No idea. It’s dark by now, and I’m searching for it with a little flashlight. It’s not on the ground, it’s not on the car, it’s not in the engine. Where could it be?
If you guessed “it hit the oil pan shield and rolled out of sight of the flashlight”, you get a prize. I won’t bore you with the incredible pain in the neck it was to get the radiator cap from where it landed in the oil pan shield, but we got it back.
We went across the street to the gas station to get directions to the NAPA store. I went to the bathroom to wash off my beard and face. This is where I noticed that the force of the coolant coming out of the engine twisted my hand pretty badly and it hurts like a bitch. Finally, with the hose in hand, we started walking the mile and a half to get to the NAPA store.
Costs for part three:
- Crawling around on the ground in the snow to try to find the radiator cap: zero dollars.
- My dignity: zero dollars.
- Getting woken up by a face full of coolant and making it sound funny on the internet: Priceless.
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