Last Saturday we began a 500 mile drive to Ft Gordon, GA at 0600. After 20 minutes on I95 I noticed a lot of puffy white smoke in my rear view mirror. Then my coolant level lamp came on. Then my trip gauge pegged. We were in busy traffic so I had to keep driving, after 5 minutes we were parked in front of a gas station.

I popped the hood and discovered the upper radiator hose had slipped off the radiator neck and dumped all of my coolant. The previous weekend I had done a complete engine flush - evidently I had not properly secured the hose clamp. Anyway, I reattached everything, started the motor and began refilling the overflow tank.

I had assumed at this point that I had toasted the head (sad for me because I just replaced the 14 with a fresh 22), so my only thought at this point was to get my family safely back home and load up our truck so we could get down the road.

After filling up the coolant again, the motor temp went back down to a little under 80. We cancelled the AAA tow truck and drove back to Fredericksburg. We watched two episodes of Hogans Hero's and let Klause cool off. I checked everything I could think of; Topped the tank off, there was no oil in there, engine oil was fine (smelled and looked normal), hoses soft, no unusual smoke. The only thing I noticed was the engine rattles a little louder (the lifters were just replaced with the head, do I think one or two are now unhappy). On the plus side the steam wash under the hood really cleaned things up nicely on the driver side of the engine bay

We said a prayer of thanks, loaded back into the car and made the trip with zero troubles. We've been down here for a week, have one more week left, then a trip back home. I'm driving him to Atlanta today.

Looks like I may have dodged a bullet - Matrix style😗

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1987 300TD named Klause
1987 300TD named Spouse
1987 300D named Seabiscuit
1980 300TD names Chloie (now sadly gone)

An East Coast favorite stop for us, fuel and junk food at Pedro's South of the Boarder.



JJ and Klause next to a fiberglass moose, Giant Sombrero in the background.



Getting a diesel drink at the big rig pump.

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1987 300TD named Klause
1987 300TD named Spouse
1987 300D named Seabiscuit
1980 300TD names Chloie (now sadly gone)

This is exactly the reason I'm a big fan of a low or zero-pressure cooling system.

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'83 300D, 126K miles.