Background: For the last dozen years, my wife and I have had our vehicles
serviced and repaired at an independent garage. (Good guys, honest,
knowledgeable, car and truck nuts)
After I got the Dak, Nov. 1998, I decided to let the dealer (5 star) do the
servicing for a while. Up until recently, no problems. The
headlight/foglight switch replacement handled OK, a few evaporative system
things taken care of under warrantee. All routine service done in a friendly
and professional manner.
Yesterday I finally decided to have an intermittent coolant temperature
problem looked at. Following a cold start, the temperature gauge would
slowly rise to nearly 260 degrees. After a minute or so, the temperature
would drop back to normal.
During these occasional temperature excursions, there would no hot air from
the heater. Aha, thought I, the thermostat is sticking occasionally, time
for a new one.
With 40,000 miles and over three years on the truck, I decided to go back to
"our" garage for the work, plus oil and filter replacement, chassis lube,
battery (will be a different post).
The findings: the radiator was only half full, the problem was air in the
system not a sticking t-stat. The thermostat housing showed evidence of a
slight leak, also the soft plug on the right side of the engine between the
oil filter and the engine mount had A RUST HOLE IN IT. This wasn't just
seepage around the edge of the plug, this is a 3/16" long, 1/16" wide hole
corroded completely through the plug near one edge but not right on the
flange. Also, the back of the plug showed heavy corrosion and significant
thinning across half of the area.
First of all, shame on me for not noticing that the coolant
overflow/recovery tank was empty and that there was no coolant visible in
the top of the radiator. This is a "relatively" new engine with the original
coolant and no really hard or abusive driving. I've seen plenty of plugs
fail when they weren't installed correctly or eventually loosened but I've
never seen one rust through this quickly. Obviously a new plug was
installed, system flushed, new coolant and extra corrosion inhibitor added.
Moral: do an occasional inspection of all the soft plugs, who knows what you
will find.
Neil
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