Hi All,

My 764t suffered the infamous sudden and catastrophic loss of coolant yesterday courtesy of a broken coupling on the plastic radiator tank. I had just changed the thermostat and done a coolant flush/fill on Sunday and must have cracked the thing just by disconnecting the other end of the hose. Anyway, my wife had the car yesterday and it blew out on the highway. She says she stopped "right after it happened", but I know she drove it at least the length of an exit ramp after the blowout, so whatever that is...1/4 mile anyway, and her first thought when it happened was that she was out of gas, so I know she didn't stop IMMEDIATELY. I tried to patch it back together this morning with the dishwasher drain hose trick so I could limp home, but as soon as I poured new antifreeze in the expansion tank, it started dripping out of the motor all over the place...underneath where the oil pan attaches to the block and in several places around the middle of the motor. I'm assuming this means my head gasket and several others are cooked, if not pistons and rings too? If so, that would be way beyond my level of self-repair. I can change belts, etc and would put in a new radiator by myself, but pulling the head is out of my league. Any guesses on what I would be looking at (in terms of cost) to have a garage rebuild this for me? My gut says to dig the sunday paper back out of the recycle bin and check the classifieds as I'm probably looking at a bigger repair bill than this car is even worth. Thanks for any tips.