Petite histoire intéressante...

[none]

Trouvé ça sur le net, intéressant à plus d' un titre.


This is a rather long-winded story with limited technical value. You've been warned.

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I found water drying around my ‘67 BGT Friday evening when I was getting in to go somewhere, so I took a fingertip sample and smelled it. It had no scent. I looked under the sill and saw a small puddle beneath the air conditioner drain. The car ran fine the night before. I was in a hurry and decided to head out and deal with any problems on the road. It was 100°F outside and the engine temperature gauge went past "N" within a few blocks. This was abnormal for my car, but it did not get into the "Hot" area. To keep it that way, I turned on the auxiliary electric fan and turned off the air conditioner whenever I had to stop at a traffic signal. When I arrived at my destination, the car sputtered and died.

I went about my business and during a break went to see if the car would start. It did, so I turned it off and checked the radiator. The radiator took a gallon of water. I drove home later and the next day found evidence that the radiator cap had been leaking. I installed a new cap and drained and replaced the coolant with a fresh mixture of anti-freeze and distilled water. I opened the heater valve all the way to make sure the heater core got drained and refilled with the rest of the system. After a thorough test and leak check, everything looked fine. No leaks, no overheating.

The following day I took the car out for an errand, a distance of about ten miles. Again the weather was hot. Halfway to my destination, I remembered the heater was on, so I turned it off. When I arrived, the car sputtered and died. Fortunately, the parking lot was sloped, and I backed the MG into a space. I opened the hood and found coolant streaming out of the heater control valve and onto the distributor. Remembering that no coolant leaked when the heater was full on, I quickly twisted the heater knob and the stream stopped.

I decided to let the car cool off before working on it and went to complete my errand on foot. By the time I got back to the car, I had a theory that the engine died because the distributor got coolant under its cap.

I pulled the hood release and was about to open the hood when a couple walked up. The man said, "I’ll give you a hundred dollars for it! I haven’t seen an MGB for years."

"Well," I said, "It’s not running right now." I raised the hood and gingerly began to pry the clips from the hot distributor cap.

The woman said, "Oh, it really isn't running."

"Really," I said.

The man said, "Well in that case, I’ll give you fifty for it."

We laughed, and he began to tell me about assorted old cars he’d owned back in the day while I wiped out the inside of the distributor cap, which was wet. The car started on the second try, and I waved at the couple as I headed home with the heater on full and the outside temperature at 100°F. Ironically, my errand was to purchase a heat gun for a household project.

When I got home I ordered a new heater control valve and a spare radiator cap. I’m still wondering how the old valve and radiator cap synchronized their failures so precisely. -G.

[sherlock]

Cette valve de chauffage est une saloperie, qui finit toujours par fuir. Je la change préventivement tous les deux ou trois ans.

Concernant le fait qu'elle ait rendu l'âme en même temps que le bouchon de radiateur, il est possible qu'il y ait eu une surpression, dûe par exemple à un remplissage effectif du système de refroidissement...