The modern car engine produces a lot of heat. Keeping your coolant system up to snuff is the key to not letting heat build up and destroy your engine. This is so important that you should be checking your coolant system as often as you do the oil. Of course, trying to avoid burning yourself is important as well.

I’ve never claimed to be the sharpest tool in the shed, but every so often I start to feel pretty good about myself like everyone does. Nothing corrects that like checking out the coolant system on my car. No matter how many times I’ve done it in the past, I just can’t seem to remember to take precautions to avoid burning myself. My fingers have looked like burned tortillas on a few occasions and, while humorous to a degree, it hurts!

Let’s cover the basics of the burn threat. Engine runs by causing small explosions in the combustion chamber. Explosions cause lots of heat. Coolant runs through engine block to remove heat. Hot coolant returns to the TOP of the radiator via hose. This next one is important – the hot coolant makes the radiator boiling hot!

For some reason, I never seem to remember this last bit. In can’t tell you how many times I’ve touched the radiator or cap only to realize what an idiot I am as I jump around in front of the car holding my hand. The correct way to check your radiator is, of course, to turn off the car and wait for it to cool down. Even then, you want to use a rag as a hold when removing the cap since the system is pressurized. If you have my luck, you might want to wear a body of armor to…made out of ice! Regardless, this is the best way to access your radiator without burning yourself repeatedly.

As a final note, allow me to educate you on the old tilted cap approach. Even I have learned some tricks through the years. When you go to remove the cap, make sure to tilt it open away from you. This way, any pressurized coolant that might be working its way up to the cap will shoot away from you instead of onto you. It is a small tip, but it saves dramatically on hospital bills.

If your car overheats while you are driving, your instinct will be to pop the hood and check the radiator by removing the cap. Don’t! Don’t pull “a Gibson” as my friends say. Lets it cool down for 15 minutes or so. Then you can pop it and figure out if there is a problem.

Tags: Automotive, car, radiator, repair

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 at 11:30 pm and is filed under Automotive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.