Hiya all,

We purchased a 1986 300E a couple of weeks ago at a great price. The car is in beautiful shape inside and out, and has driven beautifully since we acquired it. Of course being a 25 year old car it is not without it's issues, most of them seemed minor however, and I had planned to repair them all as my time and budget allowed.

Well, last night my repair schedule changed a bit. As I was on the highway we started to smell coolant, then the belt started squealing like crazy. Looked down and saw the coolant temp gauge was pegged at 120. I was on a bridge with no breakdown lane so I had to keep driving until we cleared the bridge. Before we made it over to the other side a cloud of steam blasted from under the hood. Needless to say I was assuming the worst.... blown headgasket, warped head, seized engine.

Got her to the side of the road and shut her down. Popped the hood and saw that the upper rad hose was disconnected. Upon further inspection it seems that the plastic flange on the rad that the hose attaches to broke free. Rad is toast. Best price I could find on a replacement here in Canada is $250, Tuesday at the earliest since it's a holiday weekend here.

I'm assuming the belt was squealing because it had been sprayed with coolant. Hopefully nothing more serious going on.

Luckily the car still cranks and starts (although I didn't leave it running for more than a second). Hopefully that means I got her shut down before any serious damage was done.

Anyway, I got the section of the service manual for R&R'ing the rad from 124 zone's website. Seems pretty straight forward, but having never spun a wrench on one of these cars I figured I'd ask the pro's if there is anything I need to know before DIY'ing this.

Thanks in advance folks, and wish me luck.