When Buzzards Are Circling Your RV

By Frank Talaber

It’s fifty-four degrees in the shade on Arizona’s Interstate 40. You’re hoping to see the Grand Canyon before sundown (a note to those of us laughing in the background that have been on that tarmac; there is no shade).

A nervous eye keeps glancing at the temperature needle on the dash as it begins to flicker, edging ever closer to that dreaded capital H, which you know that if the needle reaches it doesn’t mean you’re in actually in hell, but you could see it from here.

Your A/C is struggling to keep three out of four fingers clutching the steering wheel cool. The rest of you, and a very miserable wife, are perspiring most unromantically.

Buzzards have begun circling overhead smacking their lips at another overheated RV dinner (Okay. Point of fact here for those pedantic ones, buzzards don’t actually have lips but beaks, and they can’t smack them either). So, buzzards clacking their beaks circle, as ten-year-old radiator hoses begin to expand and contract like bellows of an accordion at 2 am during Oktoberfest.

A shudder rings through your engine as the thermostat clanks shut; the pistons in your engine begin to glow like your wife did after last year’s holiday in Acapulco. You still haven’t let her forget her famous words “I don’t think that SPF stuff really works, do you?” For the next week she became addicted to having her body smeared all over with Aloe Vera lotion, which could have led in other circumstances to intimate nights, except she was screaming every time you touched the red areas covering 98 percent of her body.

Next, the water pump turns to plasticene, the radiator implodes and your rubber hoses expand miraculously to eight times their size (well actually rubber only expands about double in size) releasing that dreaded mushroom cloud of steam that means for the next several hours you are going to be hiking across the desert, while tumbleweeds rattle by and eventually coyotes howl to the moon. Or, you’ll be sleeping under the RV until the missus forgives you enough to let you sleep indoors in the car seat.

Facts are that over seventy percent of all highway breakdowns are cooling system

related.  Most manufacturers claim cooling hoses have a lifespan of seven years, 140,000 km’s. So have them pressure tested and replaced every seven years.

Everything these days regarding vehicles seems to be getting more and more complex. Coolant systems and antifreeze included.

Where once we had simple green colored ethylene glycol antifreeze, we now have extended life, super duper extended life, forever after into the next generation extended life antifreeze which can be used in embalming procedures to keep that smug smile (or scowl) on your face, knowing your grandkids will never get a nickel out of your estate since you had the walls of your coffin lined in the new plastic hundred dollar bills (thanks to the Canadian Mint).

We’ve used antifreeze in automobiles for many decades, because they have a lower the freezing point than water but more importantly a higher boiling point. The original choice of green as a color has a rather interesting beginning. It was rumored that antifreeze was invented in Ireland when a Shamus McGintee had a batch of homemade beer go green. He left it on his porch in the middle of a cold winter night and discovered the next morning that it hadn’t frozen due to the alcohol content. He had the great idea of putting it into his frosted over radiator and proceeded to blow himself, and his car, into a million bits after it heated up.

“Funny stuff that alcohol,” was reportedly said, at his sixteen-day-long wake.

Years later a company read the article and decided to use methyl alcohol based antifreeze, still used in windshield washer systems, to produce the first antifreeze. In memory of poor old Shamus they decided to color it green.

Truth is, it’s colored that way to distinguish it from other sources of leaks, for instance, red for transmission fluid and brown or black (we’ll talk about regular oil changes in future articles) for engine oil, although now there are several colors of antifreeze out there. So chances are, if it’s bright green it’s safe, and if it’s gold colored there’s been an inebriated Leprechaun urinating in your radiator.

Have your antifreeze tested for PH content. This will determine if it is acidic or alkaline. Using pure straight antifreeze is not recommended, unless of course you’re living in Nunavut.

Nowadays there are newer types of antifreeze, like Dexcool, which are based on OAT technology, (no this is not something you devour in the morning with toast). Organic Acid Technology (good to five years, 250,000 km’s) has a longer lifespan than glycol (typically two years, 50,000 km’s), but the two don’t mix well.

Even newer are HOAT (Hybrid Organic Acid Technology) antifreezes put out by some manufacturers which also claim to give five year, 250,000 km life spans. But HOAT substances will mix with all other types of antifreeze.

However these newer antifreezes are considered environmentally hazardous, so coming soon will be the new SOAT based antifreezes, which are totally environmentally friendly (soybean based) substances (it’s rumoured that when they pass their ‘best by’ date they turn into a jelly tofu type substance that can be cut, browned, and seasoned with flavor enhancers to taste).

But you don’t care because you’ll be yelling “Should’ a had her flushed out and the hoses changed” while watching from the safety of your campfire, as buzzards clack away at some other distressed RVer, whose old hoses gave up doing the watusi with an old sludge filled radiator.

Just a little cooling system maintenance will keep you sleeping soundly with the missus in your own bed.