kevin_standlee | Another Van Convoy

A few days ago, we noticed that the Astro minivan, on which we spent a lot of money having the heater core and attendant fittings repaired, was leaking coolant. The unusual part was that it would only leak when running cool. Once it warmed up, the leak would stop completely. Lisa's theory was that the problem is related to the thermostatic bypass valve that prevents coolant from circulating through the heater core when the engine is cold. Once the engine has heated sufficiently, the valve lets hot water into the heater core. If there's a leak there in the seal or one of the hoses, it makes sense that the leak stops when the engine heats up.

I called the place in Reno that did the work and they said to bring it in and they'd see what was wrong. So this afternoon we convoyed into Reno, with me driving the RV and Lisa the minivan. We were running later than I'd hoped, and only got there ten minutes before they closed, so obviously there was nothing they could do today. (There was some hope that if we could have got there early they could get at it quickly and we could get it back the same day.) So after dropping off the keys, we dealt with some Reno shopping that had piled up. We took our time shopping because we'd seen coming in just how awful the traffic heading the direction from which we came was. By the time we were done with the last errand, traffic had cleared and it was a smooth drive home to Fernley.