How Hot Is Too Hot? (dauntless)

I think the Jeep gods heard me bragging about how well my jeep was running this weekend and decided to deal me a dose of humility. I was in a fairly remote area when I came up on a broken tree branch across the road. It had been driven over a few times before so I followed the tracks and took a one in a million punji stick to the bottom of the radiator. Weaved its way straight through my steering linkage, under the skid plate, over the axle, and straight in to the fan blade, bending it to slice the bottom of the radiator open. I didn't have my MacGyver kit on hand, so the best we could do was bend the fan blade back where it belonged and let the engine cool. I was able to limp back to camp one stint at a time keeping eyes on the temperature gauge. I drove until the temp hit 220 and turned off until it cooled back down. Ended up doing this two or three times. I'd say all together my engine spent about 15 minutes at 220 and never went higher. I assume I'm alright with that but just wanted to reach out to the v6 experts and see if there are any other considerations I need to have in mind while I'm shoulder deep in there fixing my radiator this week. Anything I should check on for heat damage? How hot is too hot for these odd fires?

 

220 degrees won't hurt anything. However the sensor for the gauge needs to be in contact with the coolant to measure properly. If the coolant was gone, the engine itself could have been much hotter than the gauge was showing. I had an old 72 Volvo and the fan clutch failed in traffic so it boiled over. I hated the car and wasn't going to walk for it's sake so I kept driving. You could see the temp gauge climb until the coolant was gone and then drop (even though the engine was getting hotter). I drove another 5 miles that way. Amazingly I made it home, added water, replaced the fan clutch and kept driving the thing for another 6 months.

In your case, the most likely issue would be a blown head gasket. Check for water in the oil and steam out the tail pipe. You can also pull the plugs to see if any look suspiciously clean. Keep an eye on your oil pressure too. If the oil got too hot it could have caused bearing damage. If all that stuff is fine you probably got off clean.

 

Thanks, I'll be looking for that stuff. It did seem strange that the temp jumped up to 220 pretty fast and then stayed right there without getting hotter. It didn't start going back down, but that sounds like what you're describing when the fluid is gone. There was a bit left when I removed the radiator today but not much.

 

This.

 

Probably okay since you nursed it back to camp like that. I would fix the damage and run it. If it did get hot enough to cause damage it will become obvious pretty quickly.

 

I hate it when I forget my MacGyver kit.

I might have once pulled into a offroad park after paying up at the gate with two members here to find my radiator was leaking. We pulled the radiator and soldered it up just in time to turn around and head back to town.

 

You would be surprised at how big of a leak in a radiator a can of black pepper will plug. Probably would not have plugged a punji hole, but it will plug a pretty good leak. Will also plug up more than that, and the core will need to be cleaned when a permanent fix is done, but a can of pepper kept my truck in action for a week long fishing trip and got me back home after that.

 

The hole actually wasn't that bad. It ended up that the stick bent a fan blade which sliced a thin gash at the very bottom of the radiator about an inch wide. I bet it would have been very fixable on the trail with the right stuff on hand. I've never heard of using black pepper

 

Black pepper, a raw egg, or "egg sealer" (which is something folks used to use to preserve eggs and I doubt you can even find nowadays) are things folks have used to temporarily fix a leak in a radiator.

When I got that leak in my truck radiator I was way out in the back country, and an old guy camped near us suggested that as a way to stop the leak. I had a can of black pepper in my cook box, so tried it and it worked great. We used the truck the whole week without any problem. When I got back to civilization I took the radiator to a shop and they had to "rod it" to clean it out, but that was okay with me, because the trip wasn't ruined, we were able to haul the camper home without overheating and the truck lived on for many more adventures.

That was in 1979, and the friend who was with me then, a man I had known since we were in kindergarten, passed away last year.

In his honor I will tell a little story from that trip.

My friend was named Bill Gibson. One day while we were out in the lake fishing from his boat, he saw an old Colt revolver I had in my tackle box.

Bill didn't much like guns, and he asked "What do you have that thing for?". I said "To shoot snakes".

Later that day we saw a snake swimming about a foot out from the bank. Just to aggravate Bill, with no malice at all toward the snake, I took that old pistol out of the box, threw it up and snapped off a shot at the snake. I didn't aim, wasn't really trying to hit anything, but I did hit that snake.

Bill moved the boat over and scooped up the snake with a paddle.

It was a perfect hit, I had shot the head clean off. Now, I am no pistol shot, and this result surprised me more than it did him, but I didn't let on. I just put the pistol back in the tackle box and said "I hate snakes".

For years Bill was telling people how I was a "Dead Shot with a pistol". I never let him know it was just blind luck. I can't hit the side of a barn with a pistol without a steady rest and careful aim.

 

Still available - It is called "Radiator Stop-Leak."

Sodium silicate, also called waterglass. The same stuff also used to winterize rhododendrons and seal concrete.

 

I have heard of using the contents of old flashlight batteries for emergency stop leak, has anyone tried this? We were helping a neighbor do clean up around his work shop. There was an old car radiator to load when I said I have never seen such a heavy radiator. He said it has about 40 flashlight batteries in it for stop leak!

 

Interesting. My exposure to "Egg Sealer" was when I spent the summers at the "Family Farm". They used to coat eggs with the sealer and store them in vats in the cellar. They would keep for many months. The bad ones would float to the top in the liquid they were stored in when you shook the racks.

 

I bet instant grits would work if that was all you had.

 

maybe oatmeal, or minute rice too?

 

Unsafe information - Need to specify what type of battery.

Lithium, for instance could ignite, I believe. And I'm old enough to remember the extreme corrsion carbon/zinc batteries often caused.

 

Bread will also seal a radiator up to get you home.
Keep in mind that when using these quick fixes you need to leave the radiator cap off so that the pressure does not blow out the patch material.