(mr) grey’s anatomy (sorta)

i gotta find the leak…

…mr. grey’s coolant leak, that is.

right now i know it’s dripping out of the oil change hole in the splash guard, but as there are ZERO radiator connections back there, i’m pretty sure that’s not the real spot, just where it’s running to in order to make it’s final escape.

he’s had a rough 2019 so far.

i took him out to run some errands around town on unseasonably warm days here in town with the top down. when you own a nice convertible, it’s what you do. but next thing you know i get home from the shop and notice that, overnight, a puddle has leaked out from under him and is running towards my driveway…and it’s green.

car folks know what that means.

i checked his level and it was low, but i couldn’t see where it was coming from. so i topped him off and moved on with my day.

the next week i went to run some errands in him and got a surprise – his battery was dead.

i’d had this problem another time…and all it ended up being was a loose connection on the negative post. not sure how the little fucker worked it’s way loose, but it did. reconnected it and no issues since – until then. so i figured it was the same thing, i just didn’t have time to fuck with it, so he sat…for another week or so.

today i tried to but on some battery shims i’d picked up at vato zone and it was no go – too big for the battery connectors to fit over. so i put it all back together and tightened the shit out of it…and instantly heard a noise coming from the convertible hydraulic pump. when i got in the car the top button was blinking red, so turned the ignition on and the window started slowly, inch by inch, putting it self down, pausing every half inch or so.

weird. but i knew the source – low battery juice. shane once picked up the wrong battery for his e46 and saw all sorts of weirdness. so i grabbed some jumper cables and jumped him off black betty (my five series) and he was running like ass – the check engine light was on within seconds.

i shut him off and saw a bevy of codes – bad thermostat (a leftover issue from the oil leak that went on for years over it). fuel bank issues. and misfired cylinders – two of em. THAT explained the rough idle, so i cleared em all. i went to start him back up and nope – he hadn’t run long enough to charge up for a straight start.

guess that’ll happen after sitting for a week or two…but he had enough juice for the windows to go back up so he was sealed. i let it ride and went back in the house…

…for about three minutes. it was barely 12:30 and i hate to leave a man down.

i re-jumped him and took him around the neighborhood a bunch, running up two miles (the trip odometer had reset with the dead battery so it was easy to tell). he was re-parked and i re-put my new jack i haven’t gotten to use yet and some jumper cables in his trunk…but the jack had blocked pulling him all the way in, so i went to pull him further into the car port and he re-started on his own…

…barely. like, barely enough that i said, “and off we go!” and took off. without my wallet or phone, and in flip flops. in hindsight, not that bright…but i was THAT sure he wouldn’t strand me somewhere. and i was right.

we did about ten miles around lockhart, and at one point i dropped the top just to make sure the nonsense earlier didn’t fuck up the top motor, but all was well. when i stopped at the gym just to put the top up (it was chilly) the low coolant light came on, but then went off once i took off again.

when i parked him in the car port it came back on…and stayed. and that’s where he’s at. in theory, i can top him off and drive around town a bit. in theory he’ll start back up just fine. and in theory, i can find and fix the coolant leak pretty easily.

we’ll see how these theories play out next week, i suppose.