This weekend I went down to the Eastern Freestate to a holiday farm down there that I visit every year.
This trip I decided to take a drive up to the Katse dam as we were 1km from the lesotho border at Caledonspoort.
We headed off early in the morning with 4 people in my 320d and two people in my brothers E90 320i.
About 3 hours into the trip on a huge pass up to the dam my car started to feel like she was taking strain. I was boosting hard to keep speed up the pass. I said to the passengers, this does not feel good. I think we have a problem.
Two minutes later my temp gauge started climbing. As saw it I said "Oh F*ck.........there she goes" and immediately after that a huge plume of white smoke blew out the tail pipe followed by steam from under the bonnet. Luckily I was about 20 meters from a siding and gave her one last push to get off the road. When I switched the motor off the temp was about 3/4 of the way and not yet at boiling.
When I opened the bonnet I saw the expansion tank had blown wide open. It is split about 25cm down.
All I had with me was a 1 ton tow strap and after not having any joy finding a recovery service and heavy weather heading our way, decided to tow her out with the 320i.
We almost set my brakes on fire down the pass and snapped the tow line 4 times getting out. Nearly got arrested for towing with a rope and had to shell out R500 to get away, got caught up in a protest march and burned the 320i clutch to pieces but we got over the border 4 hours later.
My dad headed down with his E39 to tow me home to JHB with a solid tow bar but his F*cking fan belt snapped in Frankfort on the way.
We had to get his car taken to the holiday farm at a cost of R2600 and I headed to bethlehem in another vehicle to get a belt from the agents there. We spent Saturday evening fitting a new belt to the fiver and towed my girl the 360km home yesterday.
I know the expansion tank on the e46 is problematic but is there a chance my head gasket actually went based on the fact that it blew so badly and the white smoke from the pipe. There is no water in the oil but I did switch the motor off as soon as it happened so it may not have worked through yet. The car still starts and the turbo is still spinning but I did not want to run it for more than 5 seconds.
