tfossum Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 Had a strange thing happen recently and thought I would get some thoughts. 2005 Legacy GT Ltd: ~125K About two weeks ago I finally got around to changing the timing belt and water pump. Filled with mix of coolant and water and checked the electrolyte level and all seemed fine. Purged the air from the coolant system and continued to check both the main and intercooler reservoir. During this project I also found several hoses leaking past their spring clamps and replaced the clamps with new threaded clamps. A spent a week of normal driving and then drove +16 hours round trip from ATL to ORL. No problems. A couple of days later 20 minutes into a drive and the the top, forward seam of the radiator starts to leak dramatically. I replaced it and having driving a couple of hundred miles and all seems fine. My question is did I somehow cause this to happen when I did the timing belt or was it just coincidence? My guess is the radiator was already weak but had not failed because the system was losing pressure because of the leaking hose clamps. Once those weak links were resolved the radiator failed. Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTTuner Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 Might have been the "electrolyte" you put in there. Electrolyte is generally an acid that goes in your battery, not good for the radiator! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tfossum Posted December 9, 2013 Author Share Posted December 9, 2013 Sorry, checked the antifreeze concentration (I got to thinking about the impact of glycol specific gravity on electrolysis and the battery). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackontan Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 coolant is a type of electrolyte process to find out if your coolant is acidic and is eating your aluminum parts you need to get your multimeter and hold one probe on the negative battery terminal and stick the other probe into the coolant. The voltage should read less than .3V, if it's more than you will get electrolysis and acid will form inside the radiator and eat the aluminum. Stray electrical currents (and new cars have a lot of electrical componets) can add to the electrolysis problem. Dex-cool is supposed to last 5 years between coolant changes but I think that is based on environmental considerations and not product life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SBT Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 You possibly leaned on the radiator during the TB install/repair which, given it's age, and mileage, was near end of service life, especially if it typically lived hin Hotlanta. I broke mine accidentally while replacing the coolant tank above the turbo. Mine had 140K-ish on it at the time and had grown-up in SoCal dry heat and last few years in SoCar heat and humidity, so had planned to do a "maintenance" replacement on it anyway... - Pro amore Dei et patriam et populum - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tfossum Posted December 9, 2013 Author Share Posted December 9, 2013 Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like my coolant refill/bleed process wasn't flawed, which was my biggest concern. I agree that the radiator was probably on it's way at as it was. When I remove the smaller hose that leads from the passenger side of the radiator to the intercooler reservoir I found the plastic was start to crack and crumble. Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SBT Posted December 9, 2013 Share Posted December 9, 2013 Exactly where mine cracked. Just before I was supposed to start on a 2K mile vacation trip... At least the coolant, the coolant tank and the radiator were all new before the trip. - Pro amore Dei et patriam et populum - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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