Blown Up or NOT??? Infiniti EX35 3.5 Overheating! 

As a old retired radiator shop owner we always used a pressure tester before and after repairs to make sure there were no leaks. We also used a vacuum filler for hard to fill systems saves a lot of time and time is money in auto repair. But anyone who has turned wrenches for a living knows anything can happen in this business. Thanks I watch the videos every day.

Also, I doubt that fitting was leaking when the other shop installed the radiator. The degraded condition of that connector leads me to believe that it let loose suddenly and catastrophically. GM used various plastic coolant nipples over the years. I've seen countless blown apart like that. I would have marked this up to an unfortunate coincidence.

I think that spill free coolant funnel and your ratcheting brake caliper piston spreader are 2 of the coolest tools you've shown us.

I use my vacuum refiller anytime I open the cooling system. No trapped air pockets. Best $200 investment.

Love the ‘assault’ air gun;the optic on it looks cool! You make auto repair interesting to someone who has never been interested in your trade, thanks Ray!

As a detailer, I love it when people tell me that hosing off the engine is going to cause problems. The engine isn't made of sugar and isn't going to melt. The danger is in using a high pressure wand at a car wash on the engine. That can cause issues forcing water into places or literally cutting wires off harnesses. I've seen that happen before... Obviously you aren't trying to flood the engine with water and you should avoid soaking electrical system, but everything susceptible to water is sealed with rubber gaskets, so you are really fine to just hose it down. Just don't do it when it is hot and remember that it isn't on fire and there isn't a need to use 200 gallons of water to clean your engine. Let the degreaser do some of the work, hose it off, and then go in and do the actual cleaning with brushes and spray bottles. That's how you get a 200,000 mile engine to shine like a diamond in a goat's ass. ;) Anyway, this has been your detailing minute for the day. As you were. :)

Given how much trouble Ray had purging the air, I think it's likely the other shop did not do so adequately. This could have caused the over heating and subsequent over pressure that broke the now brittle hose coupler.

It's been said already but a vacuum refiller tool is amazing in cooling repair situations. You can tell if a system has leaks pretty easily and quickly with it.

Florida law requires the customer to give the first shop one try at repairing the problem. If the customer fails to do so the first shop is not liable. Only fair thing to do.

That was a lucky break for Mrs. Customer, I was dreading seeing the gas tester fluid turn from blue to yellow.

I had one blow suddenly on my '09 Dodge Grand Caravan. Was on the highway, near an exit, in Nova Scotia Canada. What great people! Someone drove me into town. I picked up a piece of 1/2" copper pipe, 2 clamps, and 2 bottles of coolant. The same person drove me back to my van. I offered some money to cover their time. Wouldn't take it. Back on the road 2 hours later. People from Atlantic Canada are awesome!

Love the red dot sight on the Assault Blow Gun!

I had already learned a great deal about cars in general from my late husband as previously commented in another video. When he began to lose dexterity in his hands I became his hands & he told me what to do so I learned even more literally hands on. Ray continues to teach me through his videos. He may not be a sexy ass black man but they have very similar personalities, lol.

I’ve watched dozens of your videos and enjoyed each one. Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine myself watching someone troubleshoot and repair cars. Which i think speaks to your personality Ray. Another job done 👍🏼

Many of the VQ 3.5 L engines have an air release cap from the very area you repaired the hose connections. The V6's are very touchy when doing a coolant flush. Heater on high position during procedure and raise the front end into the air.

Ok, I’m very old and come off a farm, I used to diagnose head gaskets by putting it in gear with the brakes on and load it right up.

Awesome customer service right there. Gained another loyal consumer.

A lot of shops will break things as they work on things in order to make you come back so they can sell you more repairs. Local car dealership did that to me. Put a block of wood under my pedal and then put the format back down and then tried to charge me to figure out why my car wouldn't accelerate after an oil change. Thank you Cadillac

I appreciate the RDS on your air blower. Makes sighting easier.

Man those heater hose connectors are super common for leaking on Infiniti’s! The plastic from factory brittles over time. Just replaced both hoses (firewall to connector and connector to the block) on my g37 and man it was a pain also ended up replacing the plastic connector with a brass fitting to prevent it from going bad again. Crazy luck that yours came out so easy! Mine broke off inside and was in pieces so I had to replace both hoses.

Sometimes things just aren't apparent. Those fittings do tend to break suddenly without warning, so in this case it was a Coinkadink. There was a Suburban that I worked on many moons ago, kept loosing coolant, could not figure out from where. We ran chemical tests, nothing, pressure tests actually held, no leaks anywhere. We were stumped. I finally convinced the owner to do exploratory surgery on the engine, take it down and inspect the block internally. Got the intake off and sure as shit, there was this tiny crack on the inside valley. When the engine got hot, it would leak coolant and evaporate before even getting near the oil. They got a new engine.

Still the coolest air gun I've ever seen

This is certainly a tough case to lay any blame. As I've gotten older, I've mellowed out a bit and can see that not every bad thing that happens can be properly blamed on someone. I like your attitude on this at the end. No blame on the previous guy. But also saying that if you had done the work he did, you would have been somewhat embarrassed by this failure, and would have comp'd the repair just for the customer good will. Who knows how many times something similar may have happened in one of your repairs? Something failed just after you worked on the car - that may or may not have been related to the work you just did.

Fresh outta heart surgery, my go to videos! Ahhhhh, relaxing… click

Yep, took me 3 hours once to properly bleed a VQ35. And it kept overheating until the last hour of bleeding. Great engines but terrible to bleed and terrible to check oil on.

in cars and trucks like this, with no steam ports, its really important to vac the system down first, THEN draw coolant back into it. Air gets trapped in the head and back of the block.

I had an 09 fx35 with the same motor and the cooling fan failed going down the hwy at 80mph (broken wire.) I changed the thermostat and diagnosed that there was a blocked radiator after the severe overheating event so that and all the hoses were changed. It ran great for FOUR DAYS before it started overheating again. Turns out, the head gasket was blown and they didn't know because they didn't do a SIMPLE chemical block test after replacing the radiator. They purged the air so it quit temporarily overheating and I immediately brought it for a trade in as I still owed 10k on the vehicle. No, I don't feel bad about shafting the dealership.

I use a funnel like yours. Keeping it near full eliminates needing to park on a hill or jacking up the front end {as per some service manuals on some cars} to get the air out. Also to curb mess, squeeze the top hose as you put the cork in the funnel, when the cork is in let go of the hose and remove the funnel.I run the car till hot, then leave the funnel in place till it cools down, level in funnel should drop down and air lock should be gone.

I got the old 2006 G35 and every time I have to do a thermostat or a new radiator there was always issues getting the air out of the whole system bleeding it through the back by the firewall and adding coolant it was pretty difficult took about 35 minutes for me by at the end it was done 👍

I’m a shade tree mechanic for the last 35 years and I really enjoy your videos, very entertaining and informative. Thanks

some cooling systems do not like being run dry, they need refilled with the radiator elevated by jacking the front of the vehicle up as high as the jack will allow.

Radiator purge tip. Squeeze the radiator hose a little before putting in that plug and pulling the funnel off. It will create enough space to keep you from spilling coolant out of the neck.

Glad it worked out I figured you were going to to a combustion leak test next I was thinking it was going to start bubbling again after it got hot. Dood diag and repair Ray !

Noticed you left the hood seal on the passenger side cowel loose/out of it's proper position on it's rail. Naughty boi !

You sir are great to watch , I'm not a motor head but I learn and love the fact that you look at all options other than the one that stands out and it's clear you enjoy your work and pride yourself on a good job done . Pat yourself on the back.

Ray you didn't read my earlier comment... Squeeze the upper hose, insert funnel plug, remove funnel. No mess no fuss!

Only way to fully bleed the coolant system on these vq engines is to lift the front end. Any air in the system will overheat the engine. These can be a pest to bleed.

Anytime i suspect head gasket leaks...i pressurize the cooling system pull the coils and plugs, drop a 1080p borescope into the cylinders and look for coolant. Works every time!

The question that occurs to me is: if another shop did the work, and it failed on the way home, why did they involve a second shop to begin with?

I, too, have been known to squeeze the lower hose. I just don't make a video of it and put it up on RU-vid.

Waiting for bubbles in the funnel reminds me of staring at a lava lamp.

Here's what I think happened... The customer had the radiator replaced by the other shop and they didn't purge all the air out. That caused coolant to flash boil and overheat and over-pressurize the cooling system and the fitting let go when super hot water hit that plastic fitting. I think the original shop should pay for repairs.

Could also be that there was nothing wrong with the radiator and the coolant had leaked out through the broken connector. They replaced the radiator because it was "obviously" leaking.

We All Need a Good Mechanic like You or Scotty...

Probably something that happened after they left the shop. That plastic was brittle and could have just given way. If it was leaking, I am sure the tech would have noticed the coolant on the ground and investigated since he just refilled the system.

Quick tip, before you plug the funnel squeeze the upper hose ever so slightly then plug and you will eliminate all coolant spilling out

For proper engine cleaning you have to open the 710 cap before using water 🤔😎

Helpful hint: when you're fulling a cooling system that doesn't have a bleeder valve on it, leave the heater hose off and fill until coolant purges out. Attach to hose and top off.

For those factory hose clamps I have had some luck with long nose locking vise grip pliers. Once locked you don't have to worry about squeezing the pliers to hold the clamp down and can concentrate more on not torqueing the pliers off of the clamp as you work the clamp down the hose. Nice video Ray and thanks.

Ok, multiple comments. The VQ35HR and 37 are VERY particular on bleeding the coolant system, a vacuum style bleeder is really required. The thermostats on the 3.5 and 3.7 are notorious for sticking and not even opening if you take a torch to it when testing. That heater hose connection is a terrible design and very prone to breaking. The older 3.5 did have a heater core bleeder but that was deleted on the HR series. It's best to replace both heater hoses with the coupling and new clamps, sometimes it'll leak as the rubber hoses have formed to the old coupler. It's a very good idea to replace the thermostat too when doing any coolant work on these v6 engines, it's cheap insurance! Remember, if the cooling system is a pain to burp/bleed, you will NOT get combustion gasses out of the fill neck, you will get COOLANT. If the coolant level rises a LOT in the funnel, you have combustion gasses blowing coolant out of the cooling system and it'll take a while to actually get "combustion gasses" to burp out. The best way to get a combustion gas test is to let the engine overheat with the radiator cap on, it'll bubble and boil over into the reservoir, test that escaping gas for combustion gasses. A 240* overheat won't damage the head gasket when performing this test. However, if the cooling system is run LOW, the silicone sealing gaskets on the head gasket will MELT and cause a combustion gas leak into the cooling system, blowing out the coolant and making a combustion gas air pocket, overheating the engine. If the head gaskets are bad, you'll be in an endless cycle of blowing coolant out, air pocket, and more overheating. It's a good platform if you keep up on the coolant service and oil changes.

Normally I agree with Ray but this time I would have done things slightly differently. 1st. After new fitting installed and coolant fill, pressure test cooling system with a manual pump to rad cap opening pressure. Then the more pumps to pressurize the system, the more air (and not coolant) is in the system - no matter where that air might be. When depressurizing after testing, most times the cooling system will "burp" releasing more air. May take a few times filling with more coolant and re-pressurizing but some cars a real pain to get the air out of the cooling system - my wife's 2008 RAV 4 V6 is a real pain even using a vacuum filling unit - takes 40 mins to get it where the pressure pump only takes about 12 - 15 pumps to get it up to rad cap pressure of 15psi - initially may take 40 - 50 pumps. 2nd. If in any doubt whether the car has a combustion chamber leak into the cooling system, the chemical analysis test can be used (Ray did mention this) checking the air being expelled from the rad cap spout. If that comes back negative then that normally rules out a head gasket or other combustion gas leak - internally anyway, but it is not 100% foolproof - have been caught out before with the most minor leak that presents itself over 200 - 300kms. I have watched many of Ray's videos involving cooling systems and he seems to not use the cooling system pressure tester very often. At home in my shed, I ALWAYS test each car, with the owner present, when I have done any work on the cooling system. That "tin plates my backside" and shows that at the time the vehicle leaves my place there were no leaks or bulging hoses. I appreciate that Ray does a visual check with each system intervention but I have regularly found a joint that leaks under pressure whereas it didn't with normal checks (without the pressure system test being performed). I wonder why Ray does it his way - I am sure he has good reasons. I would welcome a comment from Ray. Retired 70 yr old mechanic in Land Down Under.

As a tech I would have advised the customer that I did not see any reason to blame the other shop and that there would have been no way they could have foreseen the second incident. I'm just not seeing any way that would have been the case. Good on you for not jumping to conclusions on the pesky air bleed moments. Lucky for me I had a four gas and could check for CO and know if it was combustion leaking into the cooling system or not. Not all shops have access to a three or four gas machine and in today's world they are really pretty much un needed but handy if you have an old one laying around sometimes.

Nice job!! I really like the way you always follow up on the diagnosis and double check everything when you're done!!

Ray good job and I think Infinity should use a giggle pin thermostat as Jeeps use with a bleed port on the upper radiator hose, some of these engines just refuse to bleed the air out of the system for a few days. PS Eric O. over at SMA is using your Doodly doo sound now every time the phone ring, see it is catching, your a hit even with other RU-vid mechanics, Eric O. at SMA and Ivan PHAD, CSW Giggity, even Ford Boss, you guys are the cream of the crop and the best of the best. Keep up the good work Brother.

LOL! I have never seen an air gun with a picatinny rail and a red dot! 🤣Did you have to fill out a Form 4473 on that? 😁

After watching a lot of your videos it’s clear that not many people like to clean or keep their cars in good condition.

Love the sight on the air gun

One of the tricks I use when I have a hard bleeding system is to use only the front lift pads to elevate the nose a few inches to allow all of the air to go into the radiator some may disagree but I have good luck with that

I would have gone 50/50% on this repair with the place that did the radiator.

As a professional tech I can’t believe you don’t have a vacuum filler, these older Nissan 3.5s and newer Chrysler 3.6s are some of the hardest cooling systems to purge out. Vacuum fill works damn near 100% of the time, fills the coolant right to the brim, no air pockets, will by far be the best $200 investment you can make

I'm thinking that you might have a small blown gasket... took way too long to purge the system. I had a similar problem on my company car that I do my own maintenance on. Started as a leaking water pump, I thought I had the system purged, overheated, figured I had air trapped, purged the system on ramps for 30+ min, no more bubbles, ran great on short trips, but when I drove for 45+ min, it started overheating again. I'm not an actual mechanic, but do many of my own repairs, and I couldn't get my hands on a chem leak tester, but was able to rent a tool to pressurize the system and found coolant in one of my cylinders, and a small coolant leaking from the block. Please follow up if the vehicle returns to your shop, but unfortunately, we may never know.... some people will just go to a 3rd shop or return to the first. Hopeful it was just trapped air and all is good.

Not going to lie, I was hoping to see the chemical block test. I've already learned multiple new things from this channel that I have been able to put to use helping my customers.

Amazing you/she dodged the blown head gasket bullet on this one. Aluminum heads at freeway speeds--don't take a lot of hey there's no coolant in the engine! There's a old myth that if your engine is over heating drive it 10 mph to get home or the nearest Rainman repair shop, don't do it!!! Pull over shut the car off and call your handyman husband/dad or ?? You'll save your self about $1000+

Kudos to you Ray for not throwing the other shop under the bus. As technicians it is real easy to put blame on anther shop to make your shop or even yourself look better. That is how shops get bad names. Good on you Ray, I think you needed to hear this.

Did anyone ask why the rad was changed? Could it have been a mis-diagnosis? In other words it was losing coolant from the broken connector, but the other shop thought it was the radiator so changed the wrong part? I'm just putting this out there as a scenario, there is no way of knowing for sure.

Hey Ray, here's a quick tip for using the funnel. Give the upper radiator hose a little squeeze as you put the plug in the funnel, that eliminates the small bit of spillage when you remove the funnel. 👍🏻

great video Ray curious why throughout all of the videos I've watched, no customer has replaced failed hood lift supports

Some of the Toyota 3.5L V6 engines are picky about purging too. I had a new radiator installed and about a week later, I noticed the coolant level in the overflow went to empty. I filled it back up and took it back to shop and asked them to purge it again. Second time around, so far so good.

Is that hose connected to a giant can of brake cleaner? 😅🤣😂

There's a cool trick an old timer mechanic told me years ago. Before filling the radiator remove the upper hose from it, fill the radiator as you would normally do. Liquid will push air and because the hose is not attached air will escape through it. When the level is full, if no liquid is coming out of the hose, you can backfill, meaning pour liquid into the hose. Removing a heater hose in this scenario does wonders. It makes sense since air cannot be trapped if it has a easy way out of the system. You can also detach a heater hose and blow through the radiator fill neck with your mouth, it will push liquid, that's an easy way to circulate any trapped bubble too stubborn to go out.

Sounds like this could be the reason of her being told she needed the new radiator.

Omw thing i explain to my customers when fixing coolant or freon leaks is that the chances are there are more areas that may be defective, and when fixing one leak, a lot of times another will rear its ugly head. Always pressure test to cap pressure and a little explanation will go along way

Not blown up it still runs it has a leaking head gasket. Why don’t you use head gasket tester with the dye that changes color with CO2 present.

Well done. My family had a auto electric shop from 1938 to 2006. We lost tons of revenue due to being honest. It's something to take pride in. My mom always said, " if you can wake up and look in the mirror and not be ashamed, your blessed." If I had a couple guys as good as you, I would still be in business.

Hi Ray! as a young up and coming mechanic I have a genuine question for you. how often do you get cases like this where it takes the cooling system almost 2 days to complete bleeding? also what was your thought process that stopped you from running the chemical block test sooner? if I spent the latter part of a day trying to bleed the cooling system and I kept getting bubbles, I would have done the head gasket chemical test alot sooner. I genuinely haven't seen a cooling system take this many tries or this long to completely bleed out. please do educate me, I look upto you alot when it comes to diag and repair work. it's amazing and everything I thought a mechanic should be growing up.

Love the picatinny rail and red dot on the air gun for quick leaf acquisition.

Ray , everyone knows that you can't hose down an engine like that . Those points inside the distributor cap could get wet .

My old Jeep, 2004 was losing coolant from 4 years ago when I bought it and it turned out to be a bad radiator cap, whew relief:-)

Although the blown-gun is awesome, my OCD can’t cope with everything swirling around… I’d be using a vacuum… Have a nice day Ray!

I enjoyed Both videos Ray gave them 👍👍. It was also so nice of you to take the extra step to blow out the leaves and rinse the engine off. I have had the Cooling system work before and would smell coolant burning off for over a week in my car. I wish there were mechanics where I live that had your work ethic.

I have always wondered about where the idea that hosing the engine down while running is a "known" no-no. When driving in the rain the engine gets plenty of spray into the compartment, so what is the problem?. I can understand the older points engines but not the newer sealed systems.

I have a 22 year old Pathfinder with the 3.5l engine. This engine has an extra rod next to the firewall to bleed the cooling system, it is closed with a rubber cup. As to the overheating, my engine used to overheat on steep hills up the freeway, so full power for a couple minutes. After that the coolant in the radiator would be low. One shop put a liquid gasket sealant into the system, which helped somewhat, but it never completely solved the problem. At 380k mi I got a used engine which fixed the problem, but we didn't do a post mortem on the old engine, so it looks like the head gasket was leaking only under full power. My wife is still using the car after 22 years for grocery shopping, also the paint has peeled off under the California sun.

Dang it Ray, in the last video you had us watching you pour liquid, this video you have us watching bubbles appear. What's next, are you going to have us stare at the turn signals to watch for blinker fluid leaks?

Nissans are notorious for air lock. Used to put the nose up a couple feet to bleed out the heater core. Wait. A tactical optic on your air gun? You're definitely in the right profession.

Good thing is engine survived having temperature and no drink! Have a blessed Easter! Enjoyed

With the other shop paying for the repair that you done, it’s good advertisement for them. I’m having myself a great day this morning drinking coffee and watching your video. 👍👍👍👍to you

the other shop might of missed that as youd assume it would leak bad.. might of spilled antifreeze on the ground changing the rad out and not noticed tiny drips.. i wouldnt blame the other shop on a piece of chinese plastic under heat and pressure

RU-vid. A man has done a good job.

Glad it is not head gasket leak. Really hard to repair and takes a lot of time.

when purging air from cooling system...usually you would turn heater on full hot and full fan. gotta purge the heater core too.

In a situation like that I would meet the customer half way, like I will not do work the customer did not pay for. If the customer did not pay for that replacement they cannot claim you owe it to them. But for a customer to have to come back again and go through all the effort again is also a waste of their time and money. To me it seems fair to go 50/50 for the guys who did the original repair. As a customer I would be happy with that, and as a business I would be happy with that as well.

We always use the funnels after a cooling system fill. Let it get to operating temp. and shut it off and let it sit while starting work on another job. after 30 minutes restart and refill the funnel. pull it and cap it and test drive

Tell tale is the smell of exhaust at the funnel and non-stop bubbles.

We're back to the "Assault Air Gun". Hooray for you.

ok that was funny on my end was thinking is fan working and not 5 seconds later you are saying the fan is working. btw I enjoy all your videos

Its on the other shop, they did a poor job of bleeding the air, which likely caused an already weak part to go. I would suspect they rushed the radiator job and did not check anything else. Just get in and get it out type of job.

The VQ35HR and VQ35DE are stupid silly to properly bleed. Use a vacuum filler for these motors, you'll have a MUCH better time in the end. The other option is to raise the nose of the vehicle about 2 feet off the ground to make the overflow the highest point.

As always enjoyed the video. Also wanted to let you know my 3 year old great grandsons really likes to watch your videos with me. I appreciate you keeping the language PG. Have a great day yourself and God Bless.

hint!!! the advantage of a "no drip" funnel is before putting handy dandy stick squeeze hose just a little insert stick then let go hose. there will be a very small air bubble so you can take funnel off, cap off and working cap back on. "aka no drip"

"Cost of doing business" ... YES! As a small business owner, people question me when I make "poor" business decisions and cover something that maybe shouldn't have been covered. We provide a service, and keeping people happy is part of that service. If that means I have to spend a little out of pocket, that's just the cost of doing business to keep that person happy, and they will come back to me next time and spend more money.