Egg in the radiator

I kept topping off the water in the radiator each day but the leak got steadily worse.  I asked around and had a mechanic highly recommended to me; however, I did not have enough money at the time and had to wait till payday which was several days away.  I started keeping extra water in the back of the van just in case and I made an appointment to fix the radiator on payday.  Then, on the way home, the leak suddenly became much worse and would hardly hold any water.  I had to stop several times on the way home and fill it up to keep the engine from overheating.  There was a steady stream of water coming out of the radiator.  I used up all my backup water in the van and barely made it home.  We only have one vehicle so there was not a second car I could use.  Payday was three days away so we were grounded for three days.  I called in at work and worked as much as possible from my computer at home.  However, there were two problems.  I had a doctors appointment the next day that I absolutely could not miss.  And, I had to somehow get the van to the mechanic which was many miles away on the other side of town.

I had heard about an old trick for leaky radiators--cracking an egg into the radiator--and looked it up online.  There is a lot of debate surrounding this (see here and here); some people say it might work and some say absolutely not.  So I tried it.  Actually I had T crack an egg into the radiator with a lot of water.  He thought I was nuts.  I wasn't so sure either.  I worried about clogging the water pump; clogging the heater core however was not so much of a concern since we never use the heater.  I started it up and let the engine run for a while.  The theory is as the water in the radiator heats up the egg cooks and solidifies and seals the leak as it is pulled through.  We tried driving down the road a short way and back and it seemed to work almost immediately.  The radiator was holding water and the engine was not overheating.  We popped the hood and there was a faint cooked egg smell.  The egg worked perfectly for the next few days.  I was able to drive to the doc appointment, and to the mechanic.  Finally on payday I had the radiator replaced and the system flushed out.