So, i replace my radiator today, and after removing the old one, i put a paper towel in the bottom radiator hose so i could spray off my engine without getting any crud down the hose, so i put the new radiator in, and hooked up the hoses, went for a drive, and realized i left the paper towel in there. Im pretty much venting right now, because i cant believe im that stupid. Anyways, where might the paper towel be? do you think it went through the water pump? Im really hoping that its still in one of the sections of hoses before the pump. Well any help would be appreciated. Incredibley ticked off at myself.

 

First place it's going is in the water pump but hopefully the blades of the water pump break it up. You're going to have to flush it thru the thermostat area without letting it back into the radiator. pull the thermo and see if any thing comes thru just keep a hose running thru the bottom hose

 

Yea its in the water pump, i pulled the hose that feeds the coolant to the pump and a bunch of coolant came out of the pump with small chunks of the paper towel. Thank you man, i am doing that tomorrow for sure. Haha i didnt even think about just doing that, i was about to pull the pump.. yikes. Thank goodness i dont have to do that. You are much appreciated, sir.

 

Lol well hopefully you didn't use a tough towel like Bounty! If you used a weak towel it should be all shredded up and easier to flush out.

If it got to the pump it should be shredded. There might be bits and pieces in the radiator though. Over time that should all break up and another flush should do the trick.


Don't worry man, worse things have happened.

 

Haha yea i got it all taken care of yesterday. I flushed it right out. It only took a few minutes, the part that ended up taking all day is when i snapped one of the bolts on the thermostat -_- But everything is runnin smooth now. Thanks guys!

Oh and yeah, youre right, im lucky i didnt use my dads shop towels for it, those things are TOUGH. It was just a cheap paper towel, fortunately.

 

at least that was an easy fix be glad i kinda had that happen with an apex seal on my rx7 got the motor put in started it and one came loose and ended up stuck in an exhaust port almost blew the motor

 

I think any one of us who's worked on something has done it too...reminds me of when I took my cowl screen off so I could oil my wiper arm to get rid of a squeak and left a rag in there.

Long story short, a few months later, and a week after a rat chewed through my wife's gas tank wires on her truck, my blower motor made a screeching noise and stopped spinning and I thought a rat had got me too....thankfully it's 3 simple screws to drop the blower motor down and instead of seeing a bloody chewed up rat, I saw a rag! I've never been more scared to remove something on a vehicle! hahaha...

... or the few times I've left the rag in my air filter boot on my dirt bike when cleaning the filter...and had to pull it out of the reed valves, lol.

This would be a good thread topic..."Where did you forget your rag?" haha

 

Use a red shop towel. their pretty cheap and always leave yourself visual signs to reminds you. Glad it worked out

 

I was installing a stereo in my car once. Finished and turned the stereo on. It lit up but no sound. Went and checked all my connections. Still no sound. Figured it was broken but wired it up on another car just to make sure and it worked just fine. Put it back in my car: No sound.
Checked, cussed, re-checked and threw things and checked again and cussed some more. No problems with my connections, still no sound. Finally I started tearing everything apart and realized that as I was screwing the door molding back on, I had accidently ran one of the screws through a speaker wire. Once the wire was fixed, it played fine and only took an extra day to find it.
Yeah... I felt stupid. :-(