3100 miles ish.. Driving home last night.. Up the mountain as usual.. Feeling pretty confident again I wasn;t religously watching the temp gauge.. Smelled a hint of antifreeze and looked down.. 250F on the mech gauge, factory gauge heading for red again.. CRAP!
Got her off the road, shut it down.. This has to be the end of it.. It just has to.. The rather oil soaked upper hose that I was too cheap to replace (didn;t have a used one laying around) split open.. Keep in mind it's 4am so not alot of people I can call at this hour, and I'm 12 miles from home.. (I'll be so glad when my house is done and I'll be in walking distance of the shop)
I've been carrying gallons of water for just in case.. However due to the cold weather they have been blocks of ice for days.. Luckily the warmer temps yesterday were just enough to partially thaw 2 gallons... The hose was split too badly to just cut it off, and I only had bits of heater hose and a bypass hose in the car.. But to my relief there was Gorilla tape.. Amazing stuff!! Wrapped the hose, had just enough water thawed out to top off the cooling system.. Left the cap loose and drove home.. And drive 40 miles (back over the mountain) to the shop. And drive 15 miles to advance auto.. THey didn;t have the correct hose, but we found one that would work.

Just fired the engine from cold a few mins ago.. No instant pressure on the cooling system, no bubbles in the tank... No overheat issues with the system pressurized.. And it's used less than a cup of oil in the above mileage..
To review: 1980 1.5 Block and head came from a car with 446,000 miles on the clock (the odometer was broken, could be more) when it was run low on oil and the crank was trashed... Head was redone, block was only cleaned.. Rotating assembly from a 1981 1.6 that had a cracked cylinder wall (it froze).. Grant rings, Clevite bearings (with one piece thrust).. And due to the lack of knowledge at the time new head bolts.. 40K (running wvo) and the HG blew.. Block was cracked but I threw studs and a gasket at it anyhow.. 140,000 Miles later (burning more WVO and some WMO and god knows what else along with oil going into the coolant) the HG lets go again.. Block gets bubble gummed together, slathered with JB weld and Hylomar with a new HG.. 3100 miles later after being overheated TWICE it's still going.. It's outlived 1 5 speed and a 4 speed in the 1980 Rabbit.. And 2 going on 3 5 speeds in my '81..
I'm having this engine bronzed!
that is a ***IN old house. really cool...
It's just a baby.. At this point we guestimate it was built in the mid 1800's.. My parent's house across the street was built in 1782...