Benthos
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Northern CA
80F outside, AC on, was going slow up a long hill and stopped about 5min to check email. Check Gauges light came on sitting there. Drove about 300 yards further, gauges looked fine. Parked in my driveway.
As soon as I shut the engine off... I heard the coolant in the radiator start to boil into the overflow. Same thing happened 5 years ago due to a bad radiator cap. 30 seconds later... BOOM. Radiator explodes at the top right by the top hose.
I was VERY lucky. I was just starting to open the hood when it blew, a few seconds later and it would have exploded right into me.
Oil looks fine. So does coolant. Only thing I can think of is I don't recall hearing the electric fan on as I pulled in, which is usually very familliar. Fan blade doesn't spin free so I presume clutch is fine. It's the original T-stat/ water pump. Flushed my coolant 3k ago.
This story seems to match a lot of the other exploding XJ radiator stories where it blows up parked in the driveway and everyone calls BS.
Why does this happen? Does boiling on shutoff indicate a problem in a specific area?
What do I troubleshoot here? Just shotgun and do radiator/ pump/ and T stat now?
What's THE best radiator to get?
https://ibb.co/PNYgzQN