I recently ran into a problem with my 2000 Kia Sportage where the fan clutch, mechanical fan blade, and radiator went out on me. From what I can tell the fan clutch broke in two and sent the fan blade into the radiator putting a hole in the radiator. I have a new fan clutch and a new radiator and am waiting on the new fan blade to arrive. I have the car disassembled in those areas so that I can put the new fan clutch, fan blade and radiator in. I am wondering however as to whether or not there is anything else that I should be looking at to make sure that the car runs properly after making this repair.
Up until the other day I have not had any problems with any of that stuff and I’m trying to get an idea as to whether there is anything else that I should be concerned about while I have the car apart right now. Currently I’m out of town in Clovis, NM trying to make these repairs and will eventually be traveling back to Albuquerque. What I want to do is to address any other areas that I can think of that might be related to this issue or damage that could have been caused by this issue that I need to address and repair so that I can be relatively certain that I will be able to return back to Albuquerque and back to Clovis without any additional problems.
This issue began to the best of my knowledge on Wednesday morning after I got back to the hotel from work. I was sitting in the car with the engine running having a cigarette when I noticed that she was smoking/steaming from under the hood. At first I thought it was nothing more than some oil on the manifold burning off. When I went to look, I noticed that it was actually coming from the radiator.
I am trying to cover my bases by as much as I can with this car so that I can try to prevent any further major issues like this for a while with this car.
Up until the other day the biggest issues that I had with the car caused by mechanical/electrical failure were the battery and alternator going out on me and the Primary Catalytic Convertor being plugged up. The Catalytic convertor was taken off and cleaned out by shop in Albuquerque in 2008. Since then the only major mechanical/electrical issue was the battery and the alternator.
The car was vandalized in the early part of 2008 to the extent that they broke all the windows on the car and slashed all the tires on the car. There was also an attempt to steal the car by hot wiring the ignition system in July of 2009. That issue has caused the door ajar bell to continuously ring when any of the doors are open and it damaged the ignition lock cylinder to such an extent that it needs to be replaced.
I’m trying to think ahead here as this is my only car and I want to do what I can to take car of it properly so that it will work for me long enough until I can replace the car. She is getting up there in miles. At the moment she is running right around 138 to 139 K miles on the odometer.
Any ideas or suggestions?