I have had a radiator leak for months. Well, actually, it was leaking like a sieve back in August, and I poured some pepper in it, which I realize is a temporary fix but has gotten me through fine. (Oh, it's a '79 245).

We had a severe cold spell here in upstate New York last night. This morning, I went out to start the car and decided to check the radiator overflow. Little there but a wee bit of antifreeze-colored slush.

I started it up and decided to get it looked at at a radiator shop about six blocks away. By the time I got there, the gauge was at the top of the red. Popped the hood, and there was a lot of boiling anger inside the overflow.

The radiator guy said he knows nothing about Volvos. Took a temp sensor and showed me how the engine temp did not look that severe at all. The hoses were both warm, but not overly so. He then told me that I might have a cracked block from the engine freezing. I have little mechanical sense, but it seemed odd that a car with a cracked block would be running nicely, which it was.

I let it cool for a while and decided to do a few errands and see what happened. It seems fine now, but I did fill it will coolant.

Any ideas on what is up here? I don't think it is a gauge problem, because I saw the roiling evidence of overheating in my overflow. And yet it seems fine now. Could some ice have originally impeded flow within the block or the hoses, thus causing the boiling, and then just melted away?


Mike