so, my heater hose goes out, have to get home (not far, maybe 1/2 mile, when i get there, smoke is coming out of the hood scoop and temp. gauge is almost all the way up, what are the chances that my engine = hurt real bad?

 

I would say you toasted it. have you started it yet? My guage has never gotten close to the H

 

smoke? odd i never got smoke


My engine hit the very bottem of the H once when i was having cooling problems, i never got smoke, and my car ran fine after that

 

was proly steam or collant hitting the exhaust mani.

 

Not necessarily (speeled that one wrong ).

I overheated my 83 12A once and it kept ticking...of course I didn't let it stay overheated.

Zach has managed to get my TIIs temp gauge up to about 3/4 doing laps around a oval...2nd gear mostly 4-7K for about a minute or two.

 

you drove home with the heater hose off?! wtf?! I blew a heater hose like 3 weeks ago. The coolant goes straight outta the engine to the firewall then to the hearter in the car and back out... That thing is gonna have no coolant left!!!!

 

If you were spilling coolant out the motor, the temp gauge probably isn't reading accurately and your actual temp is most likely higher than what the gauge shows.

 

You shouldn't have hurt it. If you didn't top-out the gauge, nevermind drove with it topped-out for a while, then it should be fine. While the coolant seals are a famous weak link, they're far from delicate.

There is a modified coolant flush that some of us have done that involves briefly maxxing out the gauge (only for a few moments.) I did it twice last year and my 7 is running just as good as ever.

Replace the hose and carry on.

 

With luck, you will only see increased oil consumption as your re-vulcanized oil control rings go away.

 

i'm replacing all my hoses, it wasn't out of coolant, it was just leaking... a lot, hopefully it does still run