Now concerned about concentrations since mixed it myself in the cold and was guessing - forgot I had antifreeze indicators, duh. Now I see why 50/50 is popular in the stores pre-mixed.
First, the protection was below -34 F, too much antifreeze, then above a tad, 4 balls floating instead of 5 in the cheap gauge - too much water, now it's probably way below - too much antifreeze, and I am getting somwhere around 70/30 instead of the usual 50/50. My Prestone gauge does not go beyond -43 F and I am not finding charts on the web yet. Maybe the shop manual has a nice list of numbers and proportions. I gather -84 F is 70/30 protection. Is it proportional or non-linear?
Will this harm anything until I can get it back to 50/50? I read that at 70/30 the antifreeze can become slightly slushy which would make the water pump worse I would think.
Any ideas? I could change the coolant or is that silly since it's probably going to leak a gallon every couple of weeks at best.
At worse, the water pump would need to be replaced right away if complete failure and might as well change timing belt then since it has to come off anyway to get to the pump and the seals for the crankshaft? That's a bit of change at this point in the winter.