Coolant Floater Broken... Please advise

[puualu]

OK, so I noticed I have a small hair line crack causing a leak in my upper radiator hose right at the hard plastic end. This over the last month was causing my coolant to leak very slowly. So at the end of the month I topped off my coolant and used a radiator cement to temporarily patch the hairline crack in the plastic end. This didn't really work so I'll have to replace the hose this weekend, but I did notice, shortly after I tested my patch my coolant floater had snapped off!

My questions:

What is the likely hood of the broken piece of my floater to cause additional damage?

What is the best method of replacement?

How on earth does me patching the hair line crack result in the floater snapping?

Thanks I appreciate your advise!!

[puualu]

Come on some one must have ran into this before. Can any one throw me a bone?

[sethro]

What model/year/milage is your X5? Has the coolant ever been flushed before?

Bad idea trying to patch it up and topping off the coolant is only a temporary solution, you have to replace all the leaking pipes and check the entire cooling system (weak point on all BMW's)

The floater stick is probably swimming at the bottom of the tank, you should replace the expansion tank immediately don't take this lightly. If the expansion tank ruptures then you will loose a good amount of coolant which can lead to overheating and even cause permanent engine damage.

[puualu]

Its an 03, 85K, 4.4. The system has been flushed before, about 30K miles ago.
My quick fix was to get me through the month when I could have more time to replace the hose. But I was not expecting to replace the expansion tank too. My concern was that the broken piece of the floater could potentially get sucked through the system and get caught somewhere... Thanks for the feed back I appreciate your advise.