Racing incidents in my K.

[Mobsta]

Today was the first day i've taken the K off road. overall it felt quite good on the tight Morwell hillclimb track. everything started off quite well, with the car performing good. I did five laps and then parked it in the pits, then got out feeling extremely happy.

Then I looked up the road a bit and followed the line of water back to the gushing radiator :surprised .

As I popped the bonnet and got a rather unpleasant steam bath, we quickly realised the problem. My clutch-type fan had slammed its way well into the guts of the radiator, causing a nasty leak.

Rotating the fan showed that it was just the one blade that was hitting the radiator, so we checked the engine mounts. fine. checked the radiator for any flex. nope. checked the fan for any misalignment or bearing movement. all good. everything seemed fine.

As we scratched our heads, we considered our options. And so we ended up going back home, a 45 minute journey one way!, and picked up the spare radiator that came with the car, grabbed the trusty cable ties and some radiator repair putty from Supercheap just in case.

Turns out that last move was a wise one as the spare radiator has different trans. cooler fittings. BASTARD! At this point on a Sunday arvo I was out of ideas as i thought the radiator was a little too damaged to use the repair putty.

Luckily, as if sent from the heavens, a wise old man told me how to fix it. his idea was simply to remove some of the fins around the broken water lines and then bend the water lines over and crimp them as hard as i could. And so I did. And it worked. And then he was gone.

I waited a couple of hours for the putty to dry at the top of the radiator, let it warm up to operating temp. and then made the journey home. In the end it was rather uneventfull, with the trip home on the freeway being a breeze, with no overheating, leaking or anything.

Still dont know why it happened though. My only thought is that everything flexed just enough at the right times to make the fan blade grab on to the small lip at the top of the radiator, and then bend its way into it.

So thankyou to the old man that helped me because no one else had any bright ideas and i'm too young and stupid to think of these things.

Cheers, JESSE