Scary thing!

Yesterday I was stuck in slow, stop and go (mostly stop) and was not watching my gauges. Suddenly- whoosh- big cloud of steam from the front end. .Temp gauge almost pegged. Pulled off immediately and shut it off. Panicked thoughts of head gasket roared through my head. AAA took us home. Went out this morning to look it over. Put water in the rad, it came right out from the bottom of it. Some kind of round fitting, 2" or so where the water was exiting. I would love to check for gasket signs, but need water to do that. So, time to do a radiator before I can even do that. Rock has them for 70-80.00. Any advise? Any hope the head gasket is OK? Thanks, guys (and girls- hopefully Kady will chime in)

2" fitting? That's called the lower radiator hose. If it's smaller if could be the drain-cock fitting.

It's not guarantee of anything, but I had the tank rupture on my GTI-engined '81 Rabbit in a generally similar maneuver involving sudden steam, a desperate lunge for the shoulder, and a AAA ride.

It was fine after a radiator replacement.

I sincerely hope I am that fortunate. Rock Auto, here I come!

cwh wrote: I sincerely hope I am that fortunate. Rock Auto, here I come!

I've overheated a ton of cars. As long as your aren't applying a ton of stress to the system at the time (in your case, you were basically idling), I've never had a headgasket go.

What you don't want to hear: I lost a Subaru motor that way. The exploding/disconnecting lower radiator pipe was only a symptom of excess pressure and exhaust gasses in the cooling system. Granted I was driving the car with a bit of pep at the time, so YMMV. Get coolant in the system ASAP, water won't give the telltale smoke out the exhaust.

It hasn't been run since I shut it off on the side of the road. Ran no more than a minute after the poof.

What is it? I've had the plastic top or bottom pieces crack on three of our 90s cars. (Two of my VWs and her Olds).

I overheated the Aspire while idling (the fan didn't switch on) a couple years ago, and it was still running like a top 30,000 miles later.

it would be a smaller hose, but breaking the end off a heat exchanger (i.e. climate control) has the same symptom; i.e. water running straight onto the ground. I had that happen with my geo one time.

Usually, if there's still enough water in the engine to make steam and you shut it off quickly, then then engine will survive. It depends a lot on exactly what went wrong, but if there's water in the coolant jacket and it's making steam then the hottest that the cylinder walls will get is the boiling point of water (212 F). Most engines are designed to take that temp for a short duration without damage.

1.6 Nissans are tough, right? RIGHT??

I've had this happen in a Tahoe, a BMW, and a Volvo. All three cars were run (water in/spew water out) hot to get home. All of them were fine after getting fixed. No worries.

In reply to cwh:

My buddy did this same thing to his 1.6L Sentra, I think his was a 96ish, at a Braves game with his A/C on idling to get into the parking lot, water pump gasket failed, made a smokey mess, pegged the temp. Replaced, fine. 95 Deg outside in June in Atlanta. I think you'll be ok.

Sounds like lower hose or fan temp switch. Should be fine with just a replacement you shut it off in time.

44

I had that happen with a saab NG900. Blew the line to the resevour getting onto the atlantic City expressway, leaving a cloud of sweet smelling steam... made it to my exit (12 miles away) before the temp needle started to climb.

After topping up with a gallon or water, was able to drive the next 5 miles home

I had a rock knock a hole in my rx7. I drove it home and replaced the radiator with one from radiators.com and it ran just fine.