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So I was checking my fluids, and when I removed the coolant reservoir cap, the spring remained in the tank. When I pulled the spring out of the tank, the bottom fell into the tank. What to do? Should I try to fish it out somehow?
I fear that there are small bit and pieces of the disintegrated 33-year-old plastic in the tank.
I'm looking online for a replacement coolant reservoir cap, but I only see "Radiator cap"
Is it the same? Does my car have both a radiator cap and a coolant reservoir cap?
The only cap is the coolant reservoir one but I notice on Rockauto they have listings for both a radiator and reservoir cap so it is confusing. It looks like you need a Motorad T39 or equivalent.
I drained the reservoir and was able to fish out some pieces. I don't see any more in there, but I'm worried that other little plastic pieces may have gone in down the hose. Will this be harmful to the cooling system?
Here's what I retrieved:
a large spring, a tiny spring, degraded rubber seal, and some other pieces. Should there be more parts?
You'd probably be best off replacing the coolant reservoir itself in order to ensure anything that fell into the bottom of it, no matter how small, gets removed. Just be sure that when you take it off, you clamp off the hose leading to the radiator so that nothing can easily find its way in. You can use a turkey baster to get all of the liquid out that you can before trying to remove the tank.
As for the petcock in the radiator, forget that. When you drain the coolant, just loosen the lower radiator hose and have a big catch basin. Those petcocks especially from that era get very brittle and will snap and leave you with no handles on something you can't turn, forcing you to pull the radiator hose anyway and depending on what position it breaks in, you might actually have to replace the radiator if it's leaking past the broken pet ****.
I believe the OEM reservoir pressure cap is still available from GM but I haven't looked in a while. 33 years old. Treated to a new reservoir. Think about how brittle all the 33-year-old reservoir is. Different plastic then the lid but the same exact heat cycles.
Hopefully you have not started the vehicle since this happened. If you have not, don't. Obviously you want to contain the debris to the tank and if it hasn't flowed anywhere that's much less of a potential mess. You do realize that that would have eventually exploded into pieces while driving yes?
Don't forget to pull the block drain plug for the coolant so that the engine block itself can be drained of coolant.
It has the M so it's probably the same company. I believe I had the white one on my 97SC2. Give it a test fit. It either seals or doesn't seal I think it will work. Did you get a replacement reservoir?
If memory serves me correctly you need to remove the windshield wiper washer reservoir first and then the coolant reservoir. I believe there are only two hoses, one goes down towards the top of the radiator, the other comes off the back of the coolant reservoir and runs around to the back of the intake manifold where it is attached with the clip. It's more work actually cleaning up the coolant mess you make when draining the system. I recommend you give it a good flush with your hose while you're at it but only after you are sure you have removed all of the foreign debris from the system.
Help! Broken coolant reservoir cap fell in!
