Sometimes it's good to be lazy...

[Our03z4]

Thankful for my laziness today. Was supposed to go to a coin show about 200 miles away this morning but the wife and myself just didn't feel like getting out of bed. Pretty thankful for it too since I developed a small hole in my expansion tank while cruising locally. Would have hated to see that tow bill. And how in the heck do they tow this thing? Luckily I was close to home when it happened so all is well. Got all the parts ordered and will upgrade while I'm at it.

[Vanne]

Lucky to be a lazy arse.. awesome!!

[unluky]

I was lucky since I was not lazy.....My GF and I went shopping on a rare 77 degree day in Feb about 1.5 hours away. When I was about 15 minutes from home my coolant level light came on, which was not rare. While I was backing into my garage I smelled coolant and when I got out it was running out of my car. I walked back out to the driveway following the coolant stream and found where it started when I stopped and put the car in reverse to back in the garage. Dumped it all right in my garage floor. Never so glad to clean up a mess in my life. An hour earlier and I would have been looking for a tow home! New expansion tank installed already and on the road again.

One bit of advice if you have never done this before - LUBE the orings in the bottom of the bottom of the tank before you try and pop it back on the neck! Take my word for it - a little KY does wonders! =)

[Our03z4]

Originally Posted by unluky

I was lucky since I was not lazy.....My GF and I went shopping on a rare 77 degree day in Feb about 1.5 hours away. When I was about 15 minutes from home my coolant level light came on, which was not rare. While I was backing into my garage I smelled coolant and when I got out it was running out of my car. I walked back out to the driveway following the coolant stream and found where it started when I stopped and put the car in reverse to back in the garage. Dumped it all right in my garage floor. Never so glad to clean up a mess in my life. An hour earlier and I would have been looking for a tow home! New expansion tank installed already and on the road again.

One bit of advice if you have never done this before - LUBE the orings in the bottom of the bottom of the tank before you try and pop it back on the neck! Take my word for it - a little KY does wonders! =)

Thanks for the advice, parts are arriving tomorrow. Plan on doing the vanos too while I'm at it.

[unluky]

Getting it off was a little tricky as well. If it does not come off (like mine) I put a long board under the car (long enough to catch on something solid on both sides) and then put a ratchet strap around the radiator and then the board and tightened it up just snug.

This is because once you get into the radiator it just kind of sits there loose, it is hard to use a mallet to pop the tank off since the whole thing bounces up and down. This board/strap combo held it tight enough that I could put the fat end of a screw driver on the bottom of the exp tank and then pop it a few times with a mallet and it popped right off after that. Really getting the tank off and back on gave me the most fits and everything else went easy.

Glad I took a break and got back on here when I was trying to get that tank back on as I was about to get the sledge out and go into hulk mode - I was getting pissed. I read about lubing the Oring, rubbed just a shade of KY on it, and it popped right on. It went on so easy I did not think it was on and pulled it back off again to check. Wish I had read that before I fought it for 30 minutes......such is life.

Good thing I "like" working on cars.....