Thread: Ouch !!

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Got run off the road last night on the way to a cruise-in .......... black BMW passing in a no passing zone .......... to keep from getting hit head on, he cut back in on me and to avoid a collision I took to the bar ditch ........... I didn't get a license number as I was too busy trying to keep the Thames from rolling over ........... windows were blacked out on the BMW so I didn't get a look at the driver .......... was able to drive the Thames back out of the ditch without stopping (knew if I stopped down there he would have to be pulled out) .......... got on up to the cruise-in (about 2 miles away) and got my first look at the car ........ not as much damage as I expected but he was dumping a whole load of coolant on the parking lot ......... the Highway Patrol called a rollback for me so I could get him home .......... couldn't find the source of the coolant leak while I was waiting for the tow (about a dozen guys were looking for it) ......... we'll load him up with water, roll him out of the garage, start him up and see if we can find the damage ............ BMW never stopped or slowed down .......... Highway Patrol said that without the plate number there really wasn't anything they could do ......... but the patrolman also said they answer this type of call about a half dozen times a month on this stretch of Hwy 68 .......... Oh well, just glad we didn't roll it and nobody got hurt

"....Oh well, just glad we didn't roll it and nobody got hurt....."

I'll second that! Hopefully the coolant leak will turn out to be a simple fix and you don't find any other problems.

Hearing stuff like this really makes me angry. There are idiot everywhere, it's a shame more aren't caught.

There are some really scarey drivers on the road. Glad you weren't hurt or more damage done to the car.

Don

Hopefully it's no more then a pulled loose water hose. And as long as you are ok

You just stated why it always makes me happy to see a set of blinking lights on a Crown Vic behind a BMW. Saw two stopped this past weekend on I-87 - one of which, a 7 series, passed me a few minutes earlier at just below warp speed, the other, speeding in a work zone.

Originally Posted by Old Coyote

.......... to keep from getting hit head on, he cut back in on me and to avoid a collision I took to the bar ditch ...........

And if you'd held your lane he would have blamed you for the damage to his beemer! Sorry to read this, and hope it's a simple fix and not that the off-road flex cracked the radiator.

sorry to hear about the car coyote. but so very glad that you were not hurt.

Wow! You were very lucky you did not wreck the car and get injured or worse. I don't know how many times I have had to avoid an accident in my daily driver because some dumb a$$ was talking on his/her cell phone.

Glad you didn't get hurt. Kurt

Thanks guys and girls for the support ......... I really appreciate it .........

But now I'm really confused ......... remember I said that a whole bunch of us tried to find the source of the massive coolant leak, and couldn't ........... it was pouring off the right exhaust pipe beneath the header (caused the temp gauge to peg at 240*) ........ but no one could find a source ........ everything around the radiator & hoses looked good, freeze plugs all seated and dry ............ so I figured we lost a water pump and the coolant was running out from below the pump and down the block

... so today I filled the radiator back up, sealed the system, and cranked him up expecting to see the leaking pump ........... it heated up tp 180*, kicked on the fan, and stayed there .......... for 10 minutes .......... so I buttoned up the nose and took him for a drive .........for another 20 minutes ........ creeped back into my neighborhood at 20mph and he heated up to 190 and stayed there all the way to the house ......... just like normal ............. man am I confused .......... no coolant leaking anywhere ........ tightened all the hose clamps just for safety sake, but none was really loose .......... the only damage I could find underneath was a popped end on my speedo cable going into the tranny

... anyone have any ideas .......... almost like the trip into the bar ditch scared him and he threw up, but now his stomach has settled

Yeah, probably just scared the...........coolant......out of it!

Don

It's always beamers too. A kid I work with has an older 528I, decently nice. He beats the crap out of it, and figures if it breaks, then his uncle ( who lent him the money for it ) will pay for the damages..

Originally Posted by Old Coyote

... anyone have any ideas .......... almost like the trip into the bar ditch scared him and he threw up, but now his stomach has settled

John,
That is indeed a head scratcher. I went back and looked at your pictures of the engine & cooling hookup and nothing seems to fit what happened. How rough was the ride in the bar ditch? Many times they are a wide, smooth, very gentle slope, but I've ridden a couple that dropped sharply to a low ditch. Just wondering how much you torqued it, and what your rpm's were doing during the ride?

it wasn't an extremely steep slope, but it wasn't a gentle one either ......... rpms were probably in the 1500-1800 range .... we were rolling along about 45-50 mph (the speed limit on that stretch of highway is 50 mph) .......... the car slid rather smoothly down to the bottom and under acceleration was able to pull itself back on to the highway .......... I didn't feel any major impacts ......... the return to the paved surface was squirrely because of the wet and muddied Pro-Tracs

Thanks for your help Roger .......... I'm at a loss ......... kinda like waiting for the other shoe to drop

It doesn't make sense, does it? Looking back at the build pictures you've got the radiator, plain formed upper & lower connections to the engine, coolant recovery tank back on the firewall with hose down along the passenger frame rail, and no heater hoses, right? How did you plug the heater connections on the water pump? I could not find a picture showing enough detail to tell. It doesn't sound like your ride was rough enough to flex the frame, and even if it did your upper hose looks like it would allow radiator movement without any pull. You don't suppose you might have had a thermostat stuck closed, headed into a temperature excursion coincident with your off-road excitement, or maybe in the two miles to the cruise? The only thing that makes sense to me is the stat stuck closed, got hot and burped from the water neck connection (slightly loose), and you were seeing coolant running from the top of the engine but it had already relieved pressure and stopped burping. It's a stretch, but I can't see anything else that makes sense to me.

The water pump is an Edelbrock 8820 with the Endurashine finish ....... the mounting hole for the heater hose adapter is filled by an endurashine NPT plug which came with the pump ........ didn't see any residual coolant around the plug

I guess we just go on and see what happens