 steve(ill) wrote:
I would not be afraid to add the Bars Leak.. Small leak with lots of driving... maybe just 1/3 or 1/2 bottle and see what happens. |
I am speaking from a terrible experience a few years ago in a Jeep Cherokee.
I am a firm believer in pelleted Bars Leaks --- in older engines that can handle it; Bars Leaks will fix leaking head gaskets, cracked blocks, and holes in radiators.
UNTIL, we park at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon; and, when I walk around the front of the Cherokee, I see a trickle of anti-freeze dribbling from between the water-pump and block = a pretty healthy dribble.
I always keep one of those big-truck-sized bottles in every vehicle just for such occasions.
After the engine cooled down, I poured in the Bars Leaks and topped it off coolant mix.
AND THEN OUR TROUBLES BEGAN, becoming one of the longest trips and tests of my endurance and patience that I have ever experienced.
The engine getting branding-iron-HOT, hoses blowing off, that hateful plastic jug swelling up and splitting; fix one leak and another happens.
Bozo's Garage in New Mexico installed a brand-new water-pump - NEW, not rebuilt; which, by the way, locked up and slung the shaft within a week of getting back home.
When I finally got to my sister's house in Lubbock, as I was in the Advance Auto, on the counter beside the cash-register was a stack of business cards; Jay's Mobile Auto Repair.
I called the number; and, within the hour, this guy shows up driving a big red panel truck - an old converted tater-chip truck.
I already had a brand-new radiator and new hoses in the back seat.
What I lacked were all the various torx wrenches and special tools required to make the switch; plus, my sister lived at the head of a gated community that frowns on such foolishness as fixing a vehicle in the driveway.
As soon as he got there and I told him the story, he said "I bet you dumped in a bottle of Bars Leaks, didn't you? "
He then told me that with later model vehicles, the Jeep was a 1992, you had best not be adding stop-leaks to the system as the tubes in radiators are tiny in comparison to older vehicles and any sort of stop-leak will immediately plug them up.
We swapped in the new radiator and problem solved; no more boiling over, no more hoses blowing apart, no more sitting beside the road waiting on things to get cool enough to work on.
The moral of this story is, you better know the specifics of your machine before you dump in a bottle of Bars Leaks.
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