I too have heard several people talk about using black pepper. When I used it myself, I just went to the grocery store and got a can in the spice isle. Poured it straight into the radiator, and away I went, home.

 

That's exactly why you should never use stop leak anywhere in a vehicle. If it's good enough to plug up that hole, think about where else it's plugging up at. $100 for a new radiator is a lot better than having to overhaul your engine because the coolant passages got blocked up and it overheated.

 

That's what my father did, and I have done it a few times also. I ran a '67 Pontiac Tempest with it for about 1900 miles when transferring from Hampton, Va. to Bossier City, La. Found a leak as I was filling up the car to depart with no time to fix it. Dumped the pepper in and away I went. Had no other water leaks on the trip. When I got to Bossier City, La. I found two pin holes in the radiator.

 

looks like black pepper is the rout im goin until i can but a new rad. thanks guys

 

Don't forget to flush the system before removing the old radiator the clean out the pepper or it could hide a new leak.

 

ok. one more thing, how long will the pepper hold

 

When My father did it he ran it for about 2 months. I had it in the system for about 6 months but I was TDY for 4 of those months (ran for about a month and a half went TDY for two months came back for about a month, deployed again for 2 weeks was back for about 3 weeks and was off again for 2 weeks and fixed it when I got back from that deployment).

 

Well,I have to admit I used it in winter of 2010 when my heater core started dripping into the cab...it worked fine and I still haven't had any leaks. I wouldn't trust it for anything major,but I keep a bottle of it in my bed box just in case I need to limp home someday.(along with a 2 lb custom adjuster, duct tape,and a Bible)lol

 

i did that to a 77 lincoln i had. stayed in there the whole time i owned it.

 

2 week deployments? What are you, Air Force? :-D