Where is my coolant going?

Does someone remember this is a home repair group? I know I get off topic, and I expect to be reminded, also.

I hate exhaust work. Usually I'd just start wrapping fiberglas tape around them and slather on the polyester resin. Except for a few compounds, epoxy resin melts when it gets hot. Don't ask me how I know....

I just cut the entire old system off in chunks and put on new stainless steel. That way I only need to do it ONCE.I did enough patching/repairing in my years as a professional mechanic -made many a brass exhaust system out of rust and brazing rods. At least today's exhaust systems last more than 2 years. The one on my almost 19 year old truck is original with 324000km on it and still solid - in the ontario rust belt.

Yes, that's why I drive a 91 Accord. It's been an amazing car. Looks pretty bad by now but I could not care less.

I submit that they are. They've got a lot more money and worry a lot less about running out or suffering from a bankrupting catastrophic illness.

That's making some serious assumptions about an awfully large group of people of very varied backgrounds. I don't think it's a sustainable assertion.

Amen. They are as different as people who don't have vast wealth.

When I worked the "embassy beat" in DC I met a lot of very wealthy people and they're all over the map. Some display their wealth ostentatiously and others don't even tip at restaurants. And there's everything in between those two extremes.

Though I never met him, Picasso was a pro at cheapskating because he paid everything by check knowing that few people would cash them but would save them instead because they would eventually become valuable collector's items.

What I can't believe now is how determined I was when I first started out in my teens to remove and save all the parts as if I were working for CSI. Then I found out what cut off wheels were for . . .

I eventually learned that any piece of the exhaust that looked good enough to re-use was really working a giant con and was usually rusted to paper thin metal inside where you couldn't yet see it. Until it blew out from being the weakest link in an otherwise new chain of exhaust parts.

The Mark X had resonators, silencers, mufflers and something else I've forgotten about that all needed replacing to pass inspection. Way, way too much stuff and connector pipes and clamps and hangers. JC Whitney to the rescue. (-:

Nowadays you can probably get parts from England as easily as from the US but back then finding parts for foreign cars was a serious quest.

All of which makes me glad I got that out of my system and drive reliable cars now. Not as tolerant of adventure on the highway anymore, I guess. But I did meet a lot of nice people breaking down here and there. That was long before cell phones when you had to knock on someone's door and ask if you could call AAA.

I had a Lincoln that was about the same. Nature abhors a vacuum and the Lincoln engineers filled any available space with some sort of exhaust plumbing. I was going to do it right but a trip to the parts store was a jaw dropping experience.

Nice car but most they were big on vacuum controls and that turned into the mightmare on elm street as the car got older, pus all the electric stuff that more or less worked.

Yeah, especially those damn Whitworth fasteners. I once did a rebuild on an Alfa Romeo Gulietta and if you think the Brits were bad. Only car I ever worked on that had wet sleeves. No oversized pistons; you replaced them all as a matched set. Another jaw dropper.

What's depressing is all those cool, fast sportscars from the '50s and '60s would have their asses whipped by a generic Honda roght off the showroom floor.

Back in the late seventies we rallyed a Renault R12. 1300cc wet sleave motor. Complete rebuild kit including gaskets, bearings, seals, pistons and sleaves was under $100. Ir was cheaper than having a mini block bored and fitting oversized pistons by over 20% - and included all new bearings and seals!!!

Alfas ran more like $100 a cylinder... Other than a rental Alliance, I never had anything to do with French cars. I looked at a Citroen DS once but the nagging voice in my head kept saying "What could possibly go wrong with this engineering marvel?" I wouldn't mind having a Traction Avant, though.

VERY classy looking vehicles. - and technical marvels underneath as well.

snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca posted for all of us...

And I know how to SNIP

You got me when you said Jag. Disassemble the suspension to replace the Lucas starter.