Nellie's Coolant Overflow Bottle and the 30 Wiffle Balls Which Were Inside It
Humility. I'm getting a big dose of it lately. My latest surefire idea to go south involved putting 30 wiffle balls in the overflow bottle to keep the coolant, which is bouncing all around because of engine vibration, from escaping out of the cap's vent hole. The escaping coolant problem has dogged Nellie for 10 years. The wiffle balls were the first remedy that cured the problem.
What's the Gray Matter?
A few months after the balls went in, I started noticing an accumulation of gray matter in the overflow bottle. While cleaning the bottle today I took all the balls out and inspected them. It appears they are being dissolved by the coolant as they're both thin and brittle.
The clean bottle is back on the engine, there are no wiffle balls in it, and I'm a little humbler and back to square one on solving the problem.
Tomorrow we head north towards Hudson, Wisconsin. Nellie's still in Lake City, Minnesota. No miles today and 4,165 miles for the journey. DBH
