So on my way home from dropping the wife off this morning, I was stopped at a red light and I noticed a little bit of smoke coming from underneath the hood. About 5 minutes later it got a lot worse and then the temp. gauge shot way up and the check gauges light came on. I just barely managed to make it home but not without the engine sounding like it was going to blow up. I popped the hood and there's a liquid all over the engine. I checked my oil, tranny fliuid and coolant levels and there all fine. The smell is kind of sweet, like syrup. What the hell spewed all over my engine? I thought for sure it was the transmission fluid but that's topped up. Any ideas?

 

Probably coolant. Not much else would make your temp gauge spike. Did you just check in the overflow tank or did you check in the radiator itself?

And if this happens again, I would strongly recommend pulling over and turning the engine off...continuing to drive on an overheating engine is a great way to destroy it...hopefully you didnt already.

 

I checked the overflow tank, not the rad itself, maybe I'll do that now that it's cooled off. I would of pulled over but I had my 2 year old son with me, and it's pretty cold out right now. Should I top it of with water? I'm not sure on what the coolant to water ratio is. And why would it be shooting coolant everywhere? I checked all the hoses and there all good.

 

top it off with coolant... perhaps your temp. popped out and coolant is leaking from there

 

Connecting the dots... Coolant. Hopefully you did not waste the engine. When the temp goes up, you should NOT continue driving the vehicle, any vehicle.

 

That sweet smell is definitely antifreeze. Just because your overflow tank has coolant in it doesn't mean that the radiator has coolant in it.

 

Yuppp exactly. You might also have a crackle radiator, which would explain why its all over the engine. Where ever the crack is, once the fluid hits the fan it shoots all over the place.

 

How much do new rads go for and how hard are they to replace? Because like I said, all the hoses are in good shape, no cracks. I guess I'll have to go get some coolant and start it up and find out.

 

Or it could be your water pump...that would explain throwing the coolant everywhere. Also if you have no/low coolant pressure, its not going to pull from the overflow tank.

 

Yeah, that's another possibility that I thought of. Well, I'm off to the store to get some anti freeze.