Yeah right you are all saying....but this is a true story...
Early last year i flew over to the UK from my Home in Poland to collect a Jeep cherokee 2.5 td ltd 1997 model that i had seen on the internet...I chose it purely on instinct , and my sister had it delivered to her house awaiting collection by me...
When i finally got to my sisters i was happy to find that the Jeep looked as good as it did on the autotrader website , and seeemed to be in good condition for its age...
The guy selling it had mentioned in his advert that there was a slight leak from the header tank , but that didn,t worry me to much , and we discovered it needed a new front shocker , and anti roll bar bushes...changed the air filter , not much to do on it really....then i took it for a test run... after only a few miles the tempreture guage went up to max , all the warning lights lit up...my heart sank , time was running out , i had a ferry booked , and had to be back in Poland....
It was decided by a mechanic friend that was looking it over that the head gasket had gone , but not in a big way , steam out of the exhaust , and loss of water...oh pooh , had i bought a lemmon..?
The next day the mechanic friend returned with news of a wonder product he had seen on the net , you just pour it into the cooling system , add anti freeze , warm the engine up , let it cool down , then run it again , and this wonder chemical sealed the leak...oh yeah , likely story i thinks...
the product was called steel seal , about thirty quid a bottle , and i needed two for the Jeep...Well , what the hell i thought , maybe it will work , at least well enough to get me the 650 miles back to Poland...i didn,t have a choice , my ferry left in a few hours...
We put the stuff in , followed the instructions...and to my great relief the steam stopped , the tempreture was normal...all seemed ok....
I drove every single mile back to Poland with one eye on the tempreture guage , but it never went above normal...since then i have done many thousands of miles , with no sign of any overheating , apart from when my water pump exploded in bits , but once that was fixed all returned to normal.. I think the chemical is supposed to stay in the cooling system , ready to seal any new leaks , but of course i lost all mine when the water pump went...despite this , the Jeep has run at normal temprature....
The only possible drawback is that i was told that the poor performance of my heater may be due to this chemical blocking up the heater core , but to be honest i don,t know if the heater was jiggered before i put the this stuff in... I am reluctant to chuck any radiator flush in there in case it messes up the good work this chemcal has done.... I did get a bit more heat out of it by putting rad flush only in the heater , and bypassing the rest of the system , but as i wasn,t able to get it hot while in the core it didn,t work fully....
So thats my story..maybe it won,t work for every overheating disaster...but it is worth a try , even if its only to get you home.... Anybody else had experiance of this stuff...?
