Caravan coolant REALLY low

[DLausche]

Last week my Wife called and said that the heater in the 02 caravan (3. 3L) had stopped working. Looked at it when I got home and found it was way low on coolant. Temp gauge was reading where it normally does and appears to be running just fine. Found the pretty major coolant leak where the upper hose connects to the thermostat housing. Easy to fix with a new hose clamp. So, I filled up the radiator again with coolant/water mix. After a while both the front and rear heaters again started to produce heat.



So, what I am concerned about is the possibiltiy that some damage was done like a head gasket or something like that. I took 3 or 4 days to purge the air from the radiator and suck in coolant from the overflow. The odd thing I am seeing is that the radiator hose appears to be rock hard after only driving around the block (i. e. engine still cold). I did a test this am and drove around the block. Upon arriving home the radiator hose was rock hard and stone cold. Oppened the radiator cap and there was no air in there and it did spew a bunch of coolant out onto the ground.



Am I being paranoid about the possibility of an internal compression leak into the cooling system? What should I look for as far as symptoms of an internal leak into the cooling system?



-Deon

 

[lil red cummins]

the best thing to do is just watch the water level in the overflow tank for a week and if it doesn't go down, you probably are ok.



the best time to check directly in the radiator, to make sure there is no air, is when it is cold because that is when it should have pulled the maximum amount of coolant back out of the overflow tank.



if the head gasket were damaged you would probably hear it miss first thing in the morning or see increased vapor in the exhaust. you could also possibly see air bubbling into the overflow tank while running.



it is not unusual for the hoses to get "hard" shortly after starting. under normal circumstances, the radiator has only water in it. any increase in coolant temperature will immediately build pressure, since water doesn't compress.



it's best not to remove the radiator cap when the vehicle is warm because you will loose some coolant and risk an antifreeze burn (been there). you could however let it sit for about 10 minutes to cool off before removing the cap. the problem with doing this while hot, is any coolant that is lost will throw off your overflow level and make the level monitoring difficult.



caravans can be difficult to bleed all the air out because the radiator tends to be below the heater core, but it sounds like you may be ok. as long as both heaters are putting out good heat, you are probably ok.



my wife's 2000 has the rear heater also. it takes a lot to get the air out of that bad boy. (5000 rpm when warm helps)



hope this helps. good luck.



jim

 

[DLausche]

Thanks Jim for the reply here. What you say about them being hard to bleed the air out reassures me a bit. I've never had a vehicle that took so long to bleed the air out and that was why I started down the worrying path. I guess the fact that it did eventually self purge the air out and the fact that it appears to hold pressure are good things. I'll keep an eye on the overflow bottle level over the next week or two.



-Deon