jelly man Posted June 20, 2004 Share Posted June 20, 2004 My friend and I went hiking yesterday in the mountains. It was a long drive in my 87 gl wagon on a crowded dirt road. We had the windows up and the AC on so we wouldn't eat dust from other vehicles. I just bought a NEW RADIATOR 2 MONTHS before so the cooling system could take the climbing and the AC on at the same time, right? We took a side road through a creek and climbed the road about a hundred yards and parked. We got out, smelled antifreeze, saw it dripping from the grill area, popped the hood but didn't find the leak. We went for our hike and looked for the leak after it cooled off. We filled the radiator with creek water and saw it pouring out as fast as we put it in. We coasted out of the mountains and then towed it home. When we pulled the radiator we found that when the AC fan was on it had caught the water, flexed forward about a half inch, enough to catch the radiator tank and then flexed along the side of the tank into the core where it sheared a couple of tubes before it was stopped. The moral of this post: NEVER CROSS A STREAM WITH THE AC ON! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lagwagon Posted June 20, 2004 Share Posted June 20, 2004 Good to Know. When I crossed a stream? that submerged the 33" tires of the truck in front of me. I decided to try and hydroplane as far across the stream as possible. Well I made it about half way, I sank and, then I gased it.The water was coming over the hood. "Note I had 4 people a dog and all our camping gear,climbing gear, snowbording gear and a mountaion bike ". Well since the air intake is in the bottom of the front right quarter panel my car sucked up some water. It keep running but was not happy cause the water had gotten kinda muddy. My tip. be first across the creek.or get a snorkle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbone Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 All the folks that have serious off roaders usually put thier fans on a switch. That way when its time to hit some water you turn off the fans. Even if it doesnt make contact with the rad, the fans are not designed to be propellers They will throw water all over the engine compartment also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralDisorder Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 Yep - and while your wiring up switches, have one to turn off the Alternator too. You can run strickly off the battery for short periods, and the alt uses HP. It's an old drag racing trick. GD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subi81 Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 Jelly man sorry to hear about the rad. Gd that is an awsome idea, but doesn't the ecu need a signal from the alt to run the fuel pump or does it cut the coil? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralDisorder Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 Don't think so. But even if that's the case, it could be easily changed. I know the EA81's don't - but then they don't have ECU's at all for the most part. I also know that EA81's and EA82's use the same alt, so there's no special computer control going on. Also if the ECU did depend on the alt, then having your alt go bad would disable the car - and I know that's not the case. You can always limp home on just the battery with most cars..... GD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edrach Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 I did the same thing to my Datsun 510 on a rally many years ago. My prevention after that was to replace the fan with a viscous clutch fan from a 240Z. After that, if the fan hit water, it would stop spinning until things were dry again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archemitis Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 that alt trick is cool, never thought about it. spfi and mpfi dont need to see anything from the alternator to work, so all of our cars could have an alt kill switch. better yet, a hydrolic tensioner pulley that you could loosen to turn off water pump too =] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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