Hi everybody.

So all the cooling system work I did over the last few days (check out post "into the breach" for highlights) has created problems in areas that weren't touched. Parked the car after running some errands and came back to find a six foot puddle of coolant on the ground. Pop the hood and find that one of the plastic and rubber crossover lines has broken and vomited high pressure coolant all over the drivers side of the engine. Thankfully this happened while the car was parked in a safe location with easily accessible tools instead of on the highway 15 mins earlier. I was able to piece the hose back together, refill the system (not completely bled but close) and start to drive home. What I didn't think of at the time was that all four driver side spark plug bores and the valley of the motor were now full of coolant...

Got two miles down the road out of four, Check Engine, Mile 3, Reduced Performance on the dash display, Mile 4 car misfiring badly and driving like poo. Feathered throttle and coasting gets it into the driveway. Get out the tools, retrieve four soaked coils from the block, pumped out what I what I could with the Mitivac, packed the bores with hi retention cloth to soak up the rest before I pull the plugs. Also ordered new plugs as they need to be swapped anyway.

Questions are:

• Are the coils trashed having been run with coolant up to the connectors for 4 miles?
• Replace as a safety even with the cost if they are still working figuring that I have shortened their lives drastically?
• Any reason why the crossover lines can't be solid rubber from end to end instead of two materials with four points of failure besides aesthetics?
• Any other systems I may have damaged by driving it like this?
• Find another hobby?

Super genius can use some help. Thanks all!

 

You could try rinsing the coils and boots in distilled water and drying. The boots can be bought as a set at Rockauto if they appear damaged.

 

The knock sensors will be in jeopardy. May need to pull up and wire brush the bottom and the area it sets on.
If you unplug them, put a string on the plug end so you can pull them back under the intake.

 

Changing for a single piece of hose seems to be the accepted fix. The only reason I can see for them being this over-engineered way is so that they dress prettily over the engine cover so, yes, aesthetics. The one twixt reservoir and radiator was deleted by 98.

Agree with RJ on the wash 'n dry for the coils. They've been stressed somewhat trying to deliver a spark to a pool of coolant, but I'd suck it and see.

Good luck!

 

It can't be "solid" because it links the engine to the chassis, but a simple flexible rubber line is what some of us have replaced the original setup with, seemingly to no ill effect. It is under the finishing plastic cover in the end, for better or worse...

 

Appreciate the follow up so far, thank you all!

Michael and RJ, I have gone ahead and rinsed all of the coils and am letting them dry in a bed of rice to pull any final moisture out. Having a parts car means having some spares for the emergency kit in the trunk if these go stupid. I have taken as much care as possible to clean up the valley and bores without disassembling anything so that I can see if there are other issues prior to putting it back together.

NAPA as always was kind enough to track down the hoses for the crossover. fmertz, having them flex as they interact with three moving pieces makes sense and I will see what I can do to run them as safely as possible to not add stress to other connections.

 

You could always view this as an opportunity to replace the valley hoses

 

True that! But I am trying so hard to not scope creep this one Cause normally I see this one thing as a "while I am in there" and "it will save $12 dollars worth of coolant" and suddenly I am buying a body rotisserie and hand painting factory chalk marks back on the rear suspension. Or how my previous Saab wound up with a nearly $1k brake pad swap

 

You just needed to blow coolant with compressed air or spray with garden hose, then blow with compressed air. I clean engines with pressure water pump all the time. Water will vaporize, because engine normal temperature is higher than boiling temp. Water from wires connectors etc will disappear when you drive. Modern spark plugs are platinum and don't need replacement, they don't wear out!!!