At what temperature does water begin to boil? And what about with a 15lb radiator cap?


I ask because I had my car idling today for a while, so I could get everything tightened up, checked out, that kinda stuff... and after a little bit I noticed that one of the hoses heading to my heater core was spitting out coolant because it was missing a hose clamp. So I shut it down, then I noticed that it was boiling in the resevoir.


I just put about 1 gallon of pre-mixed antifreeze in there (all that I had) and the rest was just tap water so I could just get it to my work and do a real coolant flush and make sure there's no air bubbles in the system.

Now I dont know if I will be able to get it to my work to do that coolant flush, and might have to just fork over the dough for the overpriced coolant from the store lol.


I also dont know if having it get to the point where it's boiling would have gotten it to the point where parts can start warping or head gaskets busting, etc...

HELP!

 

I had that problem and it was my cap. Replace the cheapest parts first. If its been a while do a pressure test, and put a thermostat and new cap on there. If its not that, you might have a head gasket issue. When it boils, is the temp gauge showing overheating? PS the system is pressurized because it raises the boiling point. So technically the only way you'll see boiling is by loss of pressure. Since you have the leak in the hose, it could be that. I'm guessing you have a cap that isn't holding good pressure, so that coupled with the house caused the boiling.

 

Thanks for the reply

I think the cap was holding a little pressure atleast since when I tried loosening it a little bit it bubbled harder and more aggresively.

I'll bring my cap into work tommorow and test it.

Either way, the water level in my resevoir rose quite a bit, I even took the cap off the resevoir so it could overflow if it came to it.

I'm in the middle of a 4th gen dash swap, and so none of my gauges work, but it had to have been in closed loop.


Thanks again, I'll grab a hose clamp while I'm at work as well and drive it up to my work on my lunch break.