While I was out running errands on Friday, I noticed a really strong odor of coolant coming from the Jeep. When I got home, I popped the hood and quickly slammed it down, along with letting some strong language slip. There was a crack across the top of the plastic part of the radiator that was hissing boiling coolant. That’s a catastrophic failure waiting to happen, as well as a trip to the burn ward if I happened to be eyeballing it when it let go. So, once my darling wife got home from work, we headed out to the local Car Quest store (actually a storefront attached to their regional distribution center) and picked up a new radiator and various other parts.
Mike came over this morning to give me a hand swapping it out. The entire job was pretty easy, though a little messy. The new radiator is now in, refilled, and burped. It’s still leaking, but I think that’s my fault for not replacing the radiator cap. I’m going to pick one up on Monday and see how things go from there.