My Rash

Yes, it got better.

What could have caused this rash?

• Arsenic in motor fuel, also known as "conditioner". Spilled on the hand from bewitched carburetor.
• Brown fluid used as radiator coolant, might have been old brake fluid. Got rid of it.
• Shingles. Chickenpox, anyone?

• All of the above.

What about my truck?  Did not get better by itself.  The radiator coolant had been leaking when hot, which made a strange odor. The odor was similar to the alcohol flavor of modern gasoline, but there was no fuel leak that could account for the odor. The odor smelled more like fuel than coolant. The radiator had been filled with a brown fluid that looked and spelled bad.

A decision was made to replace everything in the coolant system, one item at a time, in an effort to eliminate the leaks and the odor. The truck has a heater control valve in the water lines. This control valve has four hose connections. Two of the hoses were fastened to the valve with spring clamps. While removing these two hoses, the valve actually broke into pieces. The barbed hose fittings cracked through and broke off!

Perhaps those spring clamps hold on too tightly. Perhaps the cracks, hence the leaks, were a result of those spring clamps. The hand in the picture is holding one of those spring clamps, and two of the four hose barbs are seen to have completely broken away from the valve. The valve would have broken apart sometime this summer on a hot, hot day.
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