RANT: Damn radiator plastic necks and AAA!

[William Ng]

Well, it finally happen to strike me this morning! WAAAHHHH! :_O

My wife requested a ride into Boston to drop her off at work, which can be
a trying experience of bumper-to-bumper traffic. Nonetheless, I obliged
and got caught in the thick of it. DOH!
I decided to chance it on the local roads, and turned onto Commonwealth
Ave. in the Back Bay area. Car was running at the midpoint temp wise
thanks to rush hour.

Suddenly the AUTOCHECK started flashing 3 red lines and beeping away.
Thanks to lousy VDO electrics, I had no idea which problem it was alerting
me to. Last week the "low coolant" warning did rear its head everytime I
took a hard corner, but I topped it off a couple days ago. I didn't
suspect I was low again...but THAR SHE BLOWS!

Plumes of steam like an old locomotive meant I was in TROUBLE. I shut her
down immediately and coasted over to my right with Masshole drivers none
too happy about me taking up a lane.
In what seemed like 5 seconds since the 1st warning, I had lost 6 quarts
of coolant. My upper radiator hose had blown off the neck! The neck end
was ragged and was missing the bulged portion used to secure a hose. But
once things cooled, I couldn't find this portion in the hose, leading me
to believe that it was never there. It seems the PO must have had it break
off on him, and he simply slipped the hose on the remaining neck. So nice
of him! >:-(

AAA came and flatbedded me to a local Autozone. I got 2 gallons of
antifreeze and reattached the hose and tightened down on the clamp.
Once filled, the big girl didn't seem to have suffered any heat related
damage. She limped to work without incident, although the towing did some
unrelated damage to my 200 quattro. My right rear wheel was clunking
loudly. I thought my rear shock had broke a weld again, but that wasn't
the cause. Car was on a flatbed, so there shouldn't have been any effect
on the quattro drivetrain. My concern now is just where did he attach
those hooks and chains to my car?!?!?

After driving around, the loud clunking would stop if I pull up on the
parking brake a bit and engage the rear brakes. To hold the car, the tow
operator did pull up on the parking brake quite hard. Could he had broken
the internal mechanism of the rear caliper? The left caliper is quiet. I
should also point out that I installed new bushings, calipers, rotors and
brake cables to this car two months ago. So, after the tow, it seems like
I have a brake problem >:-P
Hope to find something simple like a loose fastener or brake puck.

Now I have to find a workable solution to the radiator's shortened neck.
There's a bit over 1 inch of it left but seems to narrow down at its end.
The rest of the radiator looks pretty good. I suspect my car had its
radiator replaced at one time.

It never ends, does it.

Will



=====
--
William Ng
1990 200 quattro @ 176k miles

audi200quattro at yahoo.com    willng at netzero.net
Boston, MA USA

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