Re: Milano Radiator (was Coolant All Over the Road)

[Stephen Shapar <shapar@domain.elided>]

Neil:

FWIW, suggest you check the water pump.  It's located on the driver's side
of the engine, so if it's leaking, you would find coolant on the driver's
side, too.  Its pulley should have no play...   The Alfa V-6 is notorious
for going through water pumps every 30K or so.  Also, even if it's not the
water pump,  if you don't know when last the timing belt was changed, it'd
probably be a good idea to change the belt/pump (they are normally replaced
together).

HTH,

Steve

>Hmmm, my very short period of time with the new Milano has
>spawned a ticket, that strange turn signal thing that fellow
>digesters gave some good suggestions on, and now a dramatic
>radiator failure that's got me back in the VW. After driving
>home last night I stopped to get gas, checked the oil and then
>found steaming coolant flowing out the bottom of the car. The
>temperature gauge had been reading 175, and the car had been
>performing fine. After looking around the radiator I saw coolant
>running along the bodywork lip underneath the radiator. It
>appeared to be coming from the right-hand side as you face the
>car. The hoses looked fine. So, two questions:
>1. Is it easy to do the replacement myself? The part is $125
>from APE and a local Alfa shop quoted $400 for the whole job, so
>it'd be nice to save the $275. The shop manual seemed pretty
>thorough, and didn't mention any weird tools reqd.
>2. Am I missing anything? Could it possibly be anything else?
>I'm pretty wary, being a very new Alfisti, and don't want to do
>anything silly to make it worse.
>Oh, and a third: any tips on refilling the system after doing
>the job?
>As always, thanks,
>Neil.

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End of alfa-digest V7 #755
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