rusty radiator

[wangless]

so a few months a got my car with this brown sludge in the radiator and resevoir tank. i take it to the shop and have them do a flush (easy i know, but i dont have time to do it myself). and they told me to come back in a month and a half to do another one.

so its been two months since the initial flush... and my car was running fine, no overheating problems, none whatsoever. i take my car to the shop again today. have them flush it. go home, then i go to work. on the way to work about 10 minutes of driving i see my temp gauge more than halfway up. so im like WTF. turn on the heater and blast it. i was dying with the like 90 degree temps outside... then me blasting hot air in my car. so i drive back home then go to work (really late)

get back home tonight... pop the hood, open the radiator cap to see whats up. look down i dont see any trace of coolant at all. so im like wtf happened ?! im assuming when the guys pressure tested my car they put a little too much and mustve caused a leak or something ?

and also my empty radiator is like brown/orange ... so is that a bad thing. could i have that crap all over the internals of my engine ? any potential problems ?... just got me kinda worried.

[Touchdown038]

If the radiator is that color, chances are all the coolant passages are too.

My guess is the shop just filled the rad enough to fill it, but didn't think about the fact that the coolant has to fill the coolant passages in the block too. Seems like kind of a stupid mistake for a shop to make though.

There might even be coolant lower than what you can see inside the rad, maybe just low on coolant.

[Ubernoober]

The brown color comes from a light sheen of rust in your cast-iron block. It is normal though you should flush the system once a year. Sounds to me like they neglected to correctly re-fill your coolant system. This is very much a not-good thing. If you were still getting hot air when you turned the heater on, chances are good that there was still enough coolant in the system so that you didn't do any catastrophic damage. Fill it up immediately though. Even only water is better than nothing. It should take a few times to get all the air out of the system.

[wangless]

anyone else ??

[frapjap]

My car did the same thing, it had sludge and rust. Right after I bought it, it was dead low on coolant, I was OUT. I had to water it home and flush it and the resivoir again. However, I experienced the "I am low again thing." Somehow my coolant is seeping away somewhere. The resivoir was pretty full the last time I played with it and theres no pee-ing anywhere on my driveway. Next time I'll fill it a lot, because like Ubernoober said, I may have not filled enough to fill the lines, and since I"m not a shot, its defintely possible. I'm getting a 1995 dohc put in right now, if the coolant keeps getting dumb then I'm gonna have a problem.

[wangless]

hmm... just went out to check the car. im pee'd. a little trail about 10 drips or so. its coming out of the release valve on the radiator. i tightened it all the way last night... i dunno why its still leaking from there

thanks for the advice guys, anyone else ?