A very eventful uneventful camping trip...
So a bunch of friends and I decided to get away for the weekend. We headed up Poudre Canyon Road and then up Pingree Park Road in hopes for a good camping spot. Pulling into the camp spot I overshot the turn slightly and figured all was well and it was just a little dip with some grass cover. Little did I know there was an irrigation ditch dug out for a pipe and then a massive rock just to the side of it.
This is the result of my stupidity :shocked:
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IMG_5920 by
alex fleming, on Flickr[/IMG]
Little did I know, I slammed my front diff skid so hard on the rock that it Cracked my radiator.
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IMG_5927 by
alex fleming, on Flickr[/IMG]
We noticed the leaking and began searching for the source.
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IMG_5940 by
alex fleming, on Flickr[/IMG]
It's probably a good thing that it happened because my Coolant was literally brown, it made it really hard to find where the leak was coming from because it the fluid seemed so odd. The leak had no odor and the consistency was water. We then decided to just get my car out of the mess being it was now high centered on my gas tank skid on the same rock. We tried to back up at the beginning but the hole I was stuck in did not allow us to go backwards and we figured less damage would result if we just progressed forwards.
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IMG_5948 by
alex fleming, on Flickr[/IMG]
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IMG_5952 by
alex fleming, on Flickr[/IMG]
We then got it free by jacking up the driver side rear tire with a hilift and stacking rock below it to gain traction and lift the car off the rock as well as clear the rear axle. It worked perfect, the hard part was getting the runner in a spot that we could use the hilift. After getting it free, I set up camp and just called it a night, figured I would deal with it in the morning.
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IMG_5959 by
alex fleming, on Flickr[/IMG]
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IMG_5967 by
alex fleming, on Flickr[/IMG]
I filled the radiator up with water in the morning and made it as far as I could before it unexpectedly overheated and shut it self off though the temp gage was reading stable temps. This is where we parked it for the next 4 hours. My buddy drove me into town where I got some advice from my buddy Kyle and picked up a new radiator.
Sorry for the poor focus on this one
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IMG_5984 by
alex fleming, on Flickr[/IMG]
Pulled the front skid and was presented with this bent POS
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Untitled by
alex fleming, on Flickr[/IMG]
Got the new radiator slid into the mounts after some trial and error.
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Untitled by
alex fleming, on Flickr[/IMG]
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Untitled by
alex fleming, on Flickr[/IMG]
You cant really tell from this picture but the radiator is bent up and broke the seal on the bottom side.
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Untitled by
alex fleming, on Flickr[/IMG]
Got the other one all hooked up and filled with fluid and crossed my fingers.
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Untitled by
alex fleming, on Flickr[/IMG]
I fired her up, she purred like a kitten. I read a few threads in town when I had service saying to burp the radiator. I turned the heat all the way up and cranked the fan speed up for about 3 minutes. Another thread said to rev up to 3,000 rpms a few times but I was nervous so I only did it once. After letting it run for 5 minutes I shut her off. I let it cool down then topped off the fluid. All seemed well excpet my engine light was still on. I drove it all the way back to campus with no issues. I spoke with [MENTION=107971]derpiful[/MENTION] who said he had a code reader so I went to head over and get the code. When I fired it up the check engine light was gone and all was well! Now to upgrade my diff skid:thumb: