Well I’ve been working with the aftermath of the Honda overheating for a few days now. I think a few things occured. There is a hose that goes to the heater core that had been saturated with engine oil, and it sprung a leak. I was able to just cut the end of the hose off and reattach it, leak fixed. Thanks Dad for showing me that trick when the Corvette hose sprung a leak years back.
Well I was driving in town the other day and when I got to my desitination I could hear a hissing under the hood. I popped the hood and the top of the radiator was cracked. I had put in some of that stop leak stuff they sell and it did plug the crack in the radiator, so it does work…At least temporarily.
(click to enlarge) Cracked Radiator.
When I got home I remembered that I had an older radiator for the Civic as a backup. I got it from a friend I work with who had it laying around. So I swapped that one in. It is pretty easy to do in this car. I took it out today and drove around doing some errands. I popped the hood and checked out the radiator to see how it was holding up. This one, was cracked in the same exact spot. Wonderful..lol. The stop leak worked again however and plugged the crack, I drove it home with normal temperatures.
Well….I don’t trust the glue holding things together so I checked and apparently this crack is common on these Civics. The suggestions in forums was to get an aftermarket radiator from one of the local auto stores. I was able to find one for $80. I picked it up and installed it.
Fancy New Radiator
So far this one has been holding up, but I am still checking the car after every trip for leaks. It got up to 100 degrees here today. The recent heat has put a lot of components under more pressure and stress than usual. I actually think my radiator has been cracked for at least a year now, but during the cold temperatures it isn’t an issue.
There is a lesson in life that I’ve had to learn over and over and that is that sometimes, if you want something done right, you have to do it more than once. I suppose this is along the lines of ‘practice makes perfect’. Cassie had come up with this saying when she was doing laundry. She managed to come up with a lot of wrinkly clothes. I was giving her a hard time about it and she responded with something to the effect of, “Well….If you want something done right, you have to do it twice”. It has stuck as one of our sayings ever since.
Two Cracked and One New
The car has 280,468 miles on it now and I am not exactly sure how much longer it will hold out. I’ve been looking around for a replacement, but if this one can hold out to 300,000 I think that should be enough and I won’t need to buy another car until Rincon! Even if I do have to hold this one together with glue..lol.