Radiator stop-leak?

[Richard Beels]

Drive the car, get it nice and hot...  park it in the garage and close the
door.  Come back in 5 minutes.  Do you smell coolant?  If so, pop the hood
and start sniffing closer.

I had the smallest head gasket leak on one of the 90q's, maybe a pint a
month.  But you could smell it in the garage after flogging it hard.  I
used Prestone Super Radiator Sealer stuff, the little mini anti-freeze jug
looking thing.  Since the coolant tank is really a bypass, I had to pop off
the top hose and add it that way...



At 23:53 09/29/2002, Shakespearean monkeys danced on Doyt W. Echelberger's
keyboard and said:
>I can't explain where about a pint of coolant goes every week.  No external
>drips or puddles or wet spots.  After about 200 miles of driving, I have to
>top up the overflow reservoir.
>
>I know the answer is  "Find the leak and fix it."  But that doesn't seem to
>be happening. I've been following the "coolant system gases-saga"  thread,
>and I too may have a head gasket leak.  My cabin floor isn't wet.  My next
>move is to get my mechanic to run a test on my coolant, for exhaust gases.
>If that returns positive, I do a head gasket.  But if that returns
>negative, I'll consider some kind of stop-leak. I've heard that car
>manufacturers use it routinely in new cars, because they all leak.
>(Probably a myth.)
>
>Anyhow......Did anybody ever try that dry aluminum flake material in a
>tube, that claims it will never harm anything in the coolant system?  Every
>gas station carries it and it has been around for 50 years.
>
>I figure the coolant is going somewhere that is hot enough to evaporate it,
>and it only leaks out when the engine is running, and it gets blown away in
>the stream of air that whips through the engine compartment. Maybe it gets
>spread out on the surface of the hot engine, and gets evaporated that way.
>And maybe it is getting pulled into a combustion chamber and becomes part
>of the exhaust gases.
>
>Anyhow, maybe some stop-leak will plug up whatever tiny channels are
>causing this loss. But I'm not sure what else will get plugged up with this
>powdered aluminum stuff. Channels in the heater core?  Opening in the
>thermostat? Lines to the turbo?
>
>Any bad experiences with stop-leak?
>
>Doyt Echelberger
>87 5ktq at 255k miles, in Ohio   USA


Cheers!