Check your Hoses!

[Fairlane]

Well im one ****ed off pappy at the moment, though i suppose im lucky in some respects.

Anyhow today i was on a remote back round in the Hunter Valley, near Kurri Kurri and i was belting along doing 100, and i suddenly look down at my instruments and see the temp guage off the clock (and i mean this happened fast, i check my instruments every 30sec or so, i even beat the convertor freezing up) and the warning light pm (got no buzzer). ****

Anyhow i pulled over straight away(steam was pouring out of LHF by then) and shut down. I Pulled the hood straigh away and was confronted by an ugly sight, bloody coolant everywhere and a burst top radiator hose with a 3" gash and absolutely no coolant left. NOT HAPPY JAN. Anyhow I trudged to the nearest foothill to try to get a Mobile Signal (damn Optus) and got a hold of the NRMA and proceeded to wait. Was told to wait 1-2.5 hours. So i was stuck about 8km for civilization (well the nearest village) with zippo on a 35 degree day for the next two hours.

Story has a kind of happy ending though, the NRMA guy was able to patch on a temp house and their is no lasting damage (i was worried about the head), i got it home no probs and have already got new hoses and coolant for the fix up job tommorrow.

But ultimately the Moral of the story is replace your Radiator hoses now, not next month but now, unless you feel like spending your day stranded in woop-woop. Im usually a stickler for these things but even this hose caught me off guard, it looks bloody new, nice and black and shiny and still quite flexable and with only 80,000 klms on the car it really caught be off guard.

Oh yeah and a second moral might be always keep a 6 back of Beer or Softdrinks in the car, man i could have killed for a beer about 2pm this afternoon.

Fairlane out

*I can put up a pick of said hose if you guys are interested