Radiator coolant pickup hose

[Pepo1]

When I bought my Terrano/Pathfinder a year ago, I noticed the radiator gradually emptied, but the plastic bottle where you top it up never got lower. I thought this was strange but never had a problem, until today when it overheated. I suspected this had something to do with the aforementioned weirdness, so I went straight for the top-up bottle and traced the hose coming out of the bottle, and found it not connected to anything! At least I found the problem. But, where does the hose connect to? It has a spring clip at the end so obviously connects to a metal tube somewhere, but I couldn't find it. Any help reconnecting it would be much appreciated.

[VStar650CL]

If the diesel cooling system is similar to the gasser, it should go to a nipple on the side of the radiator filler neck:

[Pepo1]

Ah ok, There is already a hose connected to that nipple that goes down the side of the radiator and drains onto the street. So there is a hose coming out of the bottle that leads nowhere and a hose coming from the radiator that leads nowhere. What the heck?! It's a QD32 diesel by the way.

[VStar650CL]

Sounds like they disconnected the bottle and just let the overflow go out to the street. Sometimes people do that if they have a pressure leak (especially in the upper radiator tank) and run slightly-low coolant as a bad remedy. It can also be that the vacuum valve in the cap wasn't sealing and the bottle wasn't really doing anything. Either way, I'd advise replacing the radiator cap with a new one and reconnecting the bottle, then warm it up and do a leak check. There's bound to be some reason they did it.

[Pepo1]

Thanks for that. I simply reconnected the hose between rad and bottle and ran it up to temp, no leaks or anything. Took the car for a long drive today then checked the bottle and it seems to have used coolant from the bottle and the rad was full. So, I think everything's fine.

[VStar650CL]