hello everyone,
I had my radiator changed. I drove it home and kept the car idling for about 10 minutes. When i popped the good to check the work, I noticed that the fan was not connected.
is there any warning light of coolant overheat because i didn't see any, only the gauge reading close to H. No steam from coolant but only burning rubber smell.
should I be worried. What sort of inspection should I perform to ensure no damage was done to engine?
thank you
The stock temp/oil gauges are stupid. So is the fuel and battery gauge for that matter. DDB has you covered on things to check out. Moving forward, if you're really into your mustang hobby, you should do some basic gauges (Coolant Temp, Oil Pressure, Wideband). You can do them all for about $250. The more accurately and actively you can monitor your cars vitals, the faster your response time can be in the event of a situation. Can be diagnostically valuable too.
IMO I think you're fine, but if the stock gauge was close to "H" you were certainly in the danger zone. The stock gauge usually won't budge passed "normal" until like 238 degrees I think (could be wrong, pretty sure I remember some tech references about it though). If your coolant cap wasn't in good shape and blew off, you could have been in deep doo. A lot of people don't test their coolant caps for pressure rating, most run the same OEM cap the car came with. The system is designed to operate around 13-16psi with the OEM cap, if I recall. The hotter it gets though, the more pressure the coolant system is under. As long as the system can contain that pressure, it will increase the coolants boiling point. Water + pressure = higher boiling point. Some performance radiators will support higher pressure rated caps (22-24psi), but the OEM radiators have plastic built around the aluminum cores with a gasket sealing the plastic and core, so its max pressure is much lower than an all-aluminum performance radiator. If you have an OEM cap and the spring gets weak over time, it will release that pressure at a lower rating. In an over-heat condition, if the system's pressure is released, it will cause the coolant to flash to steam. If the coolant boils within the system, that's when you start blowing head gaskets, or less severe but just as catastrophic, you get coolant pushing passed the gasket and into your oil journals, which will definitely damage internals.
Check that cap, get some gauges, be pro-active, love your car.