low coolant / add water?

JRscooby wrote:

Unless you where checking the pressurized part of the system when it was cold, you where gambling. Engine gets up to temp, coolant expands, forcing some into the tank. Then as it cools/contracts it is drawn from the tank to keep full. But a leak that can let air in means the tank can stay full but the system gets low.
In the OP's case, where the engine is setting and maybe slowly bleeding, the level can drop enough to let engine rapidly overheat when started, and the gauge never read hot because the sending unit is dry.

And that is why I got it schedueled into a mechanic for service as soon as I discovered it. Maybe I should have been more specific, but any in-between driving I did with it was to a scheduled generator service appointment which had been booked a few weeks before I discovered the leak, and then to the shop that handled the radiator.

I'm not sure about your neck of the woods, but getting an appointment for any kind of mechanical service has about a 2-week lead time under current conditions, except for things like oil changes, tire changes, and basic maintenance. Anything deeper than that has a pretty significant lead time. The local generator specialist had nearly a 2 week lead time when I started with them, and the mechanic I went to also had about a 2 week lead time when this issue occurred.

All of this really blew a hole in our late summer, early fall, camping possibilities.