rupe

Hey everyone,

I have a 1992 Maxima SE. It's had a coolant leak for the past couple of days, so I'd been refilling both the radiator and the coolant well regularly until I could get it serviced. Driving on 101 last night, the temperature gauge was in the normal (middle) position, and the engine sounded nice and smooth. All of a sudden, there was an explosive *bang* sound from the hood, and the windshield was covered in water. I managed to make it back to my friend's house, then opened the hood. There was a burnt rubber smell, and I noticed that the large gauge rubber cooling duct that runs along the left side of the engine had a 4-5" rupture. I'm going to have it looked at by a dealer tomorrow, but I'm wondering in the interim if anyone can offer a guess as to how this happened, and how badly I might have damaged the engine??

Thanks,

--- Rupert

Rupert Scammell
rupe@arrow.yak.net
http://arrow.yak.net/

Jon91SE

Well old hoses can begin to crack and become hard or leak so it might have had a hairline crack and it just decided to go when it did.........

OptimusPrime

the exact same thing happened to my friends old volvo, it continually had a low coolant level, but no temp probs. then a hose right into the top of the block blew on the highway. when he looked at the car later on, and opened up the radiator cap, coolant poured out the top. the mechanic concluded that he actually overfilled the coolant. once you add too much coolant, it becomes really pressurized in those hoses and if they're old they burst. so my guess is that you overfilled.

Matt93SE

iTrader: (44)

You can't really overfill your coolant.. the radiator cap is a pressure-relief cap, and opens to fill the reservoir when the pressure builds up inside the radiator.. when the level gets low, it sucks a little coolant back through the line into the system..


if you had overfilled, it would have simply overfilled the bottle on the side and ran out of the vent hole on it.


As for what burst, I'm pretty sure it was just your hose.. that's pretty common- when they go, they go in style!

rupe

Thanks for all the great information. And yes, it was a very impressive and disturbing explosion :-) I took it into the shop today, and the mechanic is recommending that the ruptured upper coolant hose, lower hose, thermostat, and thermostat gasket get changed out.

I hope to show up with a (working!) Max at the next Northern California meet, and get to know some of you.

Happy driving!

--- Rupert

Rupert Scammell
rupe@arrow.yak.net
http://arrow.yak.net