lomtonholligan

Today I went to an auto skills center on Army base and planned to replace rear struts, front linkages (needed a bit of grinding to remove old), flush the radiator, flush the brakes, change the plugs, air filter, and cabin filter. That ended up being more than I could handle.

Didn't get to the plugs, filters, or brakes.

Did the rear struts - fairly easy. The front linkages were an absolute pain due to corrosion and small clearances. Angle grinder had to be used but in the end with those suspension repairs it is driving great.

Radiator flush - I really was a noob with this one. Unfortunately, I was an idiot and only refilled the reservoir and not the radiator. Once I left the shop to go home the hot engine light started flashing after a few minutes and I had to pull over. Coolant was gone from the reservoir so I added more to the reservoir. Light came on again after taking off and driving a few hundred feet so pulled over and waited for it to cool down and tried to figure out what the problem was and why the car wasn't sucking in more coolant from reservoir. Luckily a mechanic from the shop skills shop that was helping me was driving home and saw me pulled over and rescued me from myself. He put coolant in the radiator where it belongs and it started running perfectly again. I'm lucky that I didn't get far and that he saw me before any damage could be done. No steam when opened and no sign of coolant in oil or any visible signs of head gasket or cracking (hopefully no hidden damage).

Lesson learned: car's don't like running on 1/4 to 1/3 of required coolant; try to do projects one at a time with proper attention given to each. On the bright side the shimmy to the right over bumps is gone with new suspension components.

DannoXYZ

Wow! Lucked put on that one! Get factory service manual and follow it religiously!