Or isn’t it! The continuing story of ‘t Kreng’s coolant system: I have been using ‘t Kreng on a few occasions over the past few weeks in order to add some miles on the odometer. But mainly to see how the coolant system behaved after all the cooling hoses’ small leaks had been sealed. And as such the car was also used as transport for a few works meetings and project location visits in the northern part of our province.
And guess what, only shortly after I set of for the first meeting, the low coolant level light came on. This happened while standing at traffic lights or driving very slowly through traffic. It would switch of while pulling away from traffic lights or accelerating. Though much more reluctant than it would usually do.
And there was another problem that reared its ugly head. With only a little over 100 kilometres on the odometer since the last fuel stop the fuel gauge was lingering just under the half way mark. Did I have a fuel leak? Or perhaps someone tried to syphon fuel from the car? As I already was running late I decided to ignore the instruments and warning lights and carried on the journey. At least the temperature gauge seemed to function properly! So all in all a rather enjoyable day. I even manged to capture an army Chinook helicopter that was assisting with a forest fire in the area. Rather impressive bearing in mind there is 7.600 litres of water in the Bambi bucket hanging underneath the Chinook:
I eventually returned home without any further problems. It is probably unnecessary to mention that I set aside some time last weekend to thoroughly inspect the cooling system once again:
- Starting with the header tank. It was clearly visible that the coolant level had dropped at bit. I later remembered I hadn’t topped up the system after I tightened the coolant hose connections the last time;
- The hole underneath the water pump was next in line. This was dry;
- The radiator was free from any visible leaks (hardly surprising!);
- All the hose connections between the radiator and the heater were checked with tissues. All were completely dry;
- The heater’s core pipes hidden underneath the dashboard were also dry, with no traces off coolant in the tray underneath the heater;
- The coolant drain plug in the engine block also showed no leaks. As did the head gasket.
So this morning I decided to take the car for a trip to visit a few friends. But not before I had topped up the coolant level. After which it was time to check the fuel gauge by topping up the fuel tank just across the border in Germany. Turned out the amount of fuel that went into the tank was in accordance with the amount of kilometres covered. But the low coolant level light again had a life of its own. Switching on and of several times during the short run to the petrol station. Till I remembered I was still running with the choke out slightly. And when I pushed the choke back the low coolant level light switched off. Which reminded me of a problem with the temperature gauge last year. When switching on the lights the engine temperature would rise according to the temperature gauge, and drop when the lights were switched of. At the time this was diagnosed as a bad earth in that circuit (around the instruments.). And it all adds up. So maybe I’ll have to bite the bullet and pull the instrument cluster from the dashboard for a good clean of all connectors and also clean the earth points in the interior (those in the engine bay were dealt with last year). And the low coolant level light didn’t switch on again during the next 100 or so kilometres. As a result of which it was an even more enjoyable ride!
