Top radiator hose split

[Vimmy]

I was driving back home from work tonight and stopped at the wee bridge in Lechlade, 5 miles from home, when I saw a big puff of white smoke coming from the engine bay, the car gave up no weird indications so I thought it must have been smoke from the brake pads. I carried on and every time I slowed down more 'smoke' appeared so I gingerly drove back on zero boost.

At no time did I see any voltage drops, water temperature rises, oil temp or pressure changes. I did think that the exhaust manifold had heated and melted some of the loom.

As soon as I reached home the car was switched off the the bonnet opened. It turns out the top radiator hose has a tiny hole that had dropped lots of coolant onto the exhaust manifold and produced the smoke/steam. As a stroke of luck I had a spare hose to put in place along side a coolant temp probe as a 'future' project, no hastily brought forward. After a quick bodge the hose was ready to install, but armed with an inspection lamp, snips and a screwdriver and 3 hours the hose was back on

A wee, slightly blurry, piccy of the replacement 'hose' Blue Peter styley...dont tell the wife I did it on the kitchen worktop

[j wrx tonkins]

nice bodge i had a problem a few months ago on my bug my top rad hose was rubbing against the cambelt which in the end made hole in it, bought a new one from subaru and was a lot smaller than the other one so subaru must have realised at somepoint that the ones they fitted originaly were to big so must be a common fault either on the bugs or all newages

[Vimmy]

Hehe thx, bodge is my middle name , it's good to see they amend their errors, but dont announce it. It's a pity you had to find out the hard way, I wonder if they recalled these cars that had the over sized hoses?

[Vimmy]

Yes mate they sure would, Tactical Car Repair Wing - learned my trade in the grand art of bodgery add a bit of skull duggery too