I feel your pain mate. Today was a nice warm day so I took my Yamaha DT250 wheels over to get new tyres, tubes and rim bands. The price was about $100 more than I expected but still cheaper than a lot of other tyres I’ve been looking at. Had to drop them off and collect them this afternoon around 4pm.
Drove over a bit early and stopped at Supercheap Auto to pick up a can of automotive paint stripper. As I walked back to the truck I noticed a little coolant near the left front wheel and thought maybe I’d overfilled the catch tank? Wasn’t overheating so paid it no mind. When I was only a mile from the tyre shop the traffic was really heavy and as we crawled along the temp gauge started to rise. Bugger. I pulled into a deserted car park and popped the hood, and I could see a pinhole in one of the heater hoses with steaming coolant spraying out.
No biggie, I grabbed my tool kit and cut an inch off the hose, but to release pressure I (carefully, I thought) turned the radiator cap and barely avoided a geyser of boiling coolant and steam that shot about 6 feet in the air. Oh well, I shortened the hose and tightened the clamp, then plodded off to a Shell garage to buy a gallon of coolant and a cold drink. Tipped the coolant in, then started the engine to “burp” the system, and all was good again. Still got to the shop in time, picked up my wheels and drove home in pretty heavy traffic with no more cooling issues.
As pissed off as I was, it could have been worse, it could have happened on the freeway on my way home from work on Monday, with nowhere to stop and pull over and no convenient gas stations nearby.