Friday, October 12, started out like every Friday before a tour. We checked the tires, oil, and water in the radiator. The oil was good, the tires needed a couple of pounds each to get them up to 35 psi each, but the radiator was really in need of water. This wasn't the first time I've added water to it lately. It seems that about every couple of weeks I was adding water, maybe a cup or two. But, this time was quite different. I added about 3/4 of a gallon! Well, we continued on with our check list, opening the hood to make sure the fan belt was tight, when I noticed that there was water dripping from the top of the radiator! Well, it was about 12:30, so we decided to make a couple of phone calls to see if we might be able to get it fixed at the radiator shop and put back on the car to be ready to tour on Saturday.
After about an hour of work - we drained the radiator, removed the hood, lights and unhooked the wiring, radiator cap, radiator guard, radiator shell, upper and lower radiator hoses, along with loosening the alternator and radiator support arms and unhooking the horn, we were able to remove the cotter pins, castle nuts, springs and bolts holding the radiator in and lifted the radiator off the frame!
Miz B was a sight, indeed!
Well, we took the radiator to the repair shop, and discovered not one leak, but three! Two were at the top on either side and one was at the lower inlet pipe! Amazing the radiator held any water at all! No wonder we overheated in the mountains!
The radiator fix was pretty cheap - only $35 for two hours of work! So, we headed home with a fixed radiator to begin reassembling the little car.
We finally got her back together and leakless at 8:30 pm! That was a loooong day! We are getting pretty good with putting on and taking off radiators on this car. I hope we don't have to do this job again, ever! But, we were ready to roll bright and early on Saturday morning!
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