Hey everyone, I have a few questions...

First things first, I was pulling into my girlfriend's driveway whenever I got a red light showing up in my HUD and a message saying "Caution: High Engine Temperature," so I looked over and noticed that my temperature guage was relatively high. Thank God I was pulling into her house when it happened. I popped my hood to see that the top left hose on the coolant reservoir had fallen off, with a closer look I noticed that the plastic piece broke and there was no way of reattaching it to the reservoir.
So today, I ordered a new reservoir. My question basically is, what could have caused this to happen? Also, what are the instructions for installing this new reservoir, and will I have to put the same coolant that was in it before? If so, how do I find out what was in it previously?


My second question is about my aftermarket HID bulbs. Whenever I turn my high-beams on, they warm up as usual, and then after a few minutes of running, the passenger high beam bulb starts to wobble, I guess you would say. Not exactly is it the bulb that wobbles, but the beam of like like wobbles left to right and it's extremely distracting. I've checked, and the bulb is securely put into place, and I don't know why it would be wobbling. Is there a reason that the bulb would be wobbling? Does anybody know? Also, the bulbs aren't aimed correctly. And the adjusters are broken, so how do I go about aiming the light evenly with the drivers side?

I would greatly appreciate ANY feedback on this topic, whether it's just one of the many questions I asked, or if it relates to all of them. Thanks a ton for looking, and hopefully helping!

 

The coolant reservoir could have broken for many reasons. The most common is going over a bump which sounds quite sissy, but is really how it happens. Because coolant goes from extremely hot to cool all of the time (when you turn your car off for the night,) it actually makes the plastic a little brittle. If the mold of the plastic wasn't 100% perfect, this will bring out every little flaw in the plastic and cause them to be weak points which is what you discovered.

When I first bought my cat, I had to go around with epoxy and fix the lights. I had the same problem that they weren't aimed right and I just turned them on at night on the side of a shed and epoxied them there. After 8 months, they haven't moved at all. The thing that helped me is that I bought a long piece of aluminum tubing and sucked the epoxy up in there so I could position the lights with both hands and blow the epoxy into the right place using the aluminum tubing. It was kinda a PITA, but it saved me from having to buy new headlights!! Plus I don't blind oncoming traffic anymore.

As for coolant, any coolant will work because all it is is fancy water. Just make sure that it is rated to a temperature that works with your climate (don't buy 32 degree coolant if you live in michigan.)

When I installed my hids in my fog lights, I came across an issue which would probably have caused the wobbling of your bulbs. First, if you used the epoxy approach, make sure you used a s*** load of it otherwise the wires will cause the bulb to bounce when you go over a bump. On that same note, make sure your wires aren't pulling on the back of the bulb because this too could cause the wobbling

 

Quinton, as for determining the type of coolant you have, look under the passenger side bumper and you will see a small hole there. If you stick your hand up in the hole, you will find a little valve up there with a butterfly handle to it. This is your radiator drain valve. Open the valve slightly with a catch tray underneath and see what comes out. You will have some coolant still left in the radiator. From there, you can get the same kind that you have in there now.

As for your wobbling headlights, I would take a look at the mounts for the reflectors. These are easy to break and you can prove them good by simply removing the cover off the back of the headlights and grabbing the back of the bulbs. Pulling gently on the bulb, does the bulb and/or the reflector move? If yes, then odds are you have broken mounts. if no, then it may be that the spring for your headlight bulbs is not stiff any more and when the headlights are turned on, the spring gets warm and that will cause it to get weak and allow the bulb to move around some. But, when it cools, it gets stronger and locks the bulb back into place.

 

So if my mounts are broken then what do I do? O.o And should I buy the same coolant that I had before? Will it affect the car in a negative way if I don't get the same kind it had before?

 

I know in the UK, Jaguar recommend to get the 5 year coolant (pink). I would just replace with the same, apparently it can react if you put in coolant that is of the old blue 2 year variety.

 

Well I know that the one in it previously was orange, so I'm not sure what exactly that means. Hmmm, maybe the guys at advance auto parts would know?

 

Quinton, when it comes to busted headlights, you have a few options. The easiest (but most expensive) is to go to Jag, buy the headlight assemblies that you need and call it good. But, for the factory non-HID housings, you are still looking at like $500 a headlight. OUCH!!!!! Option #2 is to look on here and there is a guy on E-bay that is selling rebuild kits that you can pull the broken mounts out of the headlights and snap in new units. But, this requires removing the headlights from the car and about an hour per headlight to replace the mounts (so, about 3 hours total since you will be removing the front bumper cover from the car). THe final option is to remove the headlight assemblies from the car and then using some 2 part epoxy, glue the mounts back together. The epoxy is really cheap, but you also have to make sure that the epoxy is set up really good before you re-install the headlights else the epoxy is just going to fail shortly after putting the headlights back in.

As for coolant, if you had the orange stuff in their before, I would say to get more of the orange stuff. Talk with the guys at the auto parts store and they will be able to help you out. There is some universal stuff out there that would also work. If you drained the system down to the broken nipple point, you will need right around a gallon of the 50/50 mix stuff, possibly slightly more.

If you have any more questions, just ask.

 

You're excellent, thanks so much for all of your help! Godsend should be your username!

EDIT: Would it be possible for you to link me to the mount kit? I've looked up and down and can't find anything :/

 

Quinton, check out motorcarsltd.com. Worst case, give them a call and they should be able to hook you up.