ok so i know some of you are going to call me a dumb *** but do to being away from where my car was stored for abit, i now have a problem. i put the car away in the summer and left it with mostly water in the system. well for the first time in years we got snow and it got cold enough for well the water in the block to freeze.... it wasn't 100% full but what im worried about is if its done damage to the block....

tell me the truth guys.... am i looking at a rebuild? the motor has less then 6,000k on it.

ive been slowly adding 100% coolant to the system as i see it going down... i was told doing so the coolant will make any frost/ice melt. is this true?

 

Engine toast? Not likely. . But you wont know till the ice melts and you can check the system.. Just wait till the ice is melted before you start it.. And after the weather is warm. And you can then check the cooling system. If a freeze plug didnt pop. chances are you are ok. but you wont know till you start the car and check for leaks.. I have frozen my engine in the past.. it was ok.. it really matters how frozen it got. if there is no or little water in the engine itself the ice might not have damaged the engine.
If its part ice and slush in the engine it should have not done any damage.

 

doing a coolant pressure test will see if damage is done. also look for bubbles in the coolant when starting cold / burning coolant out of the exhaust.

as for adding coolant, yeah it may take awhile, best would be to let the car sit in a heated garage overnight. Im waiting for someone to say "use hot water or hot coolant" but if you have a huge temp change you can crack the housings. like from freezing to 100deg. in less than a sec.

good luck let us know.

 

just because it snowed doesn't mean the engine got cold enough to freeze with straight water in it. generally it requires the HIGH temp of a single day to be 32*F before it's really of concern.

 

Sounds like it broken iron, I found out the hard way when I first moved to TX.

I also left mostly water through the winter and ended it up with a broken center iron from the water freezing.

 

well so far i'm looking good on the melting the ice slowly part, as for a heated garage... DAMN i wish. i slowly started adding just coolant and by morning it had melted the ice in the rad and the lower rad hose. so far what i have done is put 2 little space heater sitting in the engine bay and i put a steel N/A hood on the car to keep the heat in since my reverse vented hood would have done **** all in that department. i have also been checking the oil for water/coolant just incase i popped any expansion plugs in the motor

 

…You really shouldn't leave straight water in an engine for a long period of time anyway, the coolant channels on the [cast iron] plates are already prone to breaking. [The only thing that seems to go wrong on my NA cars :P]

On my most recent motor I even put water-wetter in just to give it extra rust protection.

 

BTW, The freeze plugs will fail, It cracks from the inner of the center iron

 

well the nice thing i found out, judging by how low the levels are getting as its getting abit warmer. i dont think it was 100% full, so talking to some rotary guys in my area they said there is a good chance that the water had room to freeze and didnt stress the block to the point of major damage

 

Can you explain to me how that works? The water travels on the outer parts of the Irons. How would it crack in the inner center?

 

Water sits and freezes and expands breaking the iron. I had a old picture but lost it of the damage.

I fist notice when my water level dropped, Filled it and water started coming out from the oil fill neck

 

Wow, you live in BC...what are the high and low temps?

I would at least drain the radiator and if you can get to the block drain i would open that up too.

 

doesn't really matter if the water level is full or not. water when frozen expands in place but having more room to breathe does help marginally. it also depends if it froze into a brick or only partially where some spots were still liquified giving the ice room to freeze without pushing outward.

once the ice is a solid mass, it can break anything around it from its expanding forces.

 

Yes, i have also seen this happen on my friends car.

"man this is taking alot if water..." Then you see water coming out of the oil neck.

 

well i started the car today, i have bubbles coming out the upper filler neck when the cap is off. but to make sure I'm going to pressure test the system to make sure there isn't any leaks. also I'm going to make sure there isn't an air pocket anywhere.

 

is it dead?