[DeTomaso] Bleeding the cooling system

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/1/13 13 39 2, guson at home.se writes:


> I beg to differ. As soon as you start driving the car it will see 
> G-forces much greater than those induced by jacking or parking on a slope. There 
> is no possibility that air would be trapped in the straight under car tubes 
> after that.
> 
>>>No.   Instead, the air that WAS trapped in the pipes before you started 
driving, will now be trapped in your engine!   And you're driving!

And overheating.

The point of the exercise is to purge the system of air (as much as 
possible) *before* you start driving it.

There was a significant incident that happened many years ago to a new 
Pantera owner here in PCNC land, named Walter Villere.   He bought his Pantera 
from a police auction, a rather scruffy but solid Euro GTS, and only paid 
$13K or something like that.   One side was beat up because it had been parked 
in a fenced lot right against the fence, and the wind had whipped the fence 
and battered the side of the car.   But the damage was all rather trivial.

Walter knew a lot about cars and nothing about Panteras.   First thing he 
did when he got it home was to change all the fluids--water and oil.   He 
drained all the coolant, then just filled it up and topped it off until the 
tank was full, on level ground.   He then closed the cap, and took off across 
the Richmond bridge, which started right outside his office.

Walter was/is a maniac.   Great guy, but a maniac.   He wanted to see how 
fast it would go, and the bridge is a great place because there's no place 
for cops to hide.   Traffic was light so he just ran it up to redline in 5th 
gear.   Having a great time, eyes on the road of course, so he failed to 
notice that because he hadn't properly filled the cooling system, the temp gauge 
was pegged.

BOOM!!!!!!   The engine let go like Krakatoa!

Only AFTER that, and a new engine from Hall Pantera, did he learn the 
importance of the proper filling/bleeding procedure....

> > I agree that you want to bleed the radiator and top up at the rear 
> filler but the jacking is a waste of time.
> 
>>>It doesn't cost anything, doesn't hurt anything, and not doing it has 
led to at least minor overheating problems in the past.   And the manual 
directs you to do it.

So why WOULDN'T you do it?

Mike