Alan wrx-sti

I was driving home today on the M8 (Glasgow) heading east bound, the car was feeling a little rough so as I took my exit I made sure there was no one around me and gave the car a quick blast then out of now where a loud bang and then white smoke started billowing out of the engine bay.

As this was happening I just had the sad image of Jimser car going up and I thought oh no here we go again.

I pulled over open the hood and then seen that there was coolant everywhere, again thought oh no the heads have go (this would have been the second time now... more $$$) I had a look at the expansion tank and that was bone dry, all the water / coolant was on the left hand side of the engine as you look in.

I managed to slowly get the car the half a mile to my house, I let everything cool down then went out to see what’s what.
I then found that it was the top radiator hose that had split and blown letting all the coolant flush out. Has anyone heard of this happening before on a classic???

I’m just hoping there is no damage to the internals of the engine.

Here's a pic.

D4NNY5R1

It must have been pretty hot for it to split like that, how was the temp gauge before it happened? if you managed to see it. There is maybe something else wrong which is causing it to heat up.

Alan wrx-sti

Temp on the Apexi hand unit was reading normal before the bang, temp would hit 91 fans would kick in as normal and bring it back down to the 85 /86ish mark.

hux309

Could be a hg faliure, compression gasses leak into the coolant system causing what you've said, plus you know lots of white smoke can be indicative of it going.

Only real way to be sure is to run a compression test.

I take it you skimmed the block and the heads and used a decent gasket?

GpMarty

iTrader: (7)

hi,mine did the same thing when the head gaskets failed, its the weakest spot and it blows,you will find out shortly if it is when you fit a new hose and it boils over within a few mins.

dj219957

could just be a simple failure of the pipe. if your gaskets were duff and pressurising the system then you should first get get water overflowing from the expansion bottle by the battery. The header tank cap SHOULD open before there is enough pressure to cause that damage to the pipe. Thats the idea of the cap. What pressure cap are you using?

Alan wrx-sti

I'm pretty sure it's the Pink STI radiator cap rated to 1.3bar I have.

The head gaskets went about 3 years ago, and at that time I got the head and block skimed and upgraded the gaskets to Steel gaskets ( I think it was steel anyway).
So that's way I was thinking the heads should still be o.k. as have not done any mods since then, and there was no sign's of coolant in the expansion tank at all it was still nice and dry.

4wheel

iTrader: (2)

same happened to mine and a mates replaced it never happened again,just put it down to age and wear/tear hope it turns out the same

tweaks

iTrader: (7)

same thig happened to 2 of my mates and both are still fine after new hose

dj219957

the standrd cap is 0.9 or 1.1 bar so that extra bit of pressure has caused the tired pipe to fail.

shogo10

iTrader: (1)

Good excuse to get a samco coolant hose set