Hunt's 4th Law, subsections 3 and 4: "'new' parts will sometimes fail soon
after fitting; 'new' parts almost certainly won't last as long as the
originals."
----- Original Message -----
From: Simon Matthews <simon_atwork@hotmail.com>
To: <mgs@autox.team.net>
Sent: Sunday, June 18, 2000 11:50 PM
Subject: Getting home when things fail!
> This week, while stopped at traffic lights during my drive home from work
in
> my 'A', someone pointed out the large amount of coolant coming from my
car.
>
> I pulled up, opened the bonnet and found that the coolant was spewing out
of
> the heater control valve. After a while I removed the radiator cap, but by
> this time, the temperature gauge was reading about 95psi (yes, the
> temperature needle had moved into the oil pressure range!)
>
> I managed to walk to a nearby garage, where I purchased a 2 gallon petrol
> tank, filled it with water and got a lift back. Experiments showed that
> turning the heater valve on reduced the leakage, so I re-filled the
> radiator, turned the heater on and left the radiator cap off.
>
> I figured that if I left the radiator cap off, it could not become
> pressurised and would therefore leak less. Since I had spare water, I
could
> top up to replace any fluid lost out of the radiator.
>
> I carefully drove the rest of my journey home with no further incident.
The
> car is now back on the road after a quick trip to Pleasanton (Skip
Kelsey).
>
> Now, the question: why is it that a 2 year old heater valve fails on a 40+
> year old car? I believe the car was punishing me for changing the coolant
> only a couple of weeks ago.
>
> Simon
> ________________________________________________________________________
>
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