Hey Gang,
Well, 'Beamish is roadworthy again... You may recall that I had a
coolant leak during the Codpiece of America Tour?
I pulled the gooseneck and found it to be in good condition. The
thermostat was working but I decided to change it out anyway (to Big A
#ACS 30108, $3.61) as I think the one in it was 160 degrees and I
wanted 180 degrees. The inside (?) of the radiator side of the upper
hose was slightly abraded so, to avoid future problems, I swapped it
out, too (to Big A #GAT 20661, $6.81 with 2" cut off).
The gooseneck showed some lime deposits which have me wondering about
the inside of the radiator. I verified that the gooseneck face is
flat and true.
I cleaned up the mating surfaces real good, put in the new thermostat
and a new gasket (Big A #ACS 20904, $.49), put it back together,
tightened everything up, started the engine and it still leaked like a
sieve.
I scratched my head for a while, then pulled everything apart again.
Since I could see no reason for the leak which was definitely coming
out of the gooseneck joint, I gave it some thought and looked things
over carefully.
The PO had "upgraded" to a GM alternator, necessitating a sort of
finockied up bracket which mounts to the left side of the gooseneck.
It occured to me that adding the thickness of the bracket doubtless
meant using a longer bolt on that side (if, indeed, it had not
originally been a stud). I tried the bolt without the gooseneck and
it bottomed out way too soon.
So, with the too long bolt it was impossible to torque the gooseneck
down enough to be water tight.
Replaced the bolt, put everything back together with Permatex (soft n'
gooey), torqued her down, and everything seems AOK.
Live and learn...
--Colin Cobb, Las Cruces, NM
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Sep 05 2000 - 10:15:23 CDT