Big Freeze Damage?

Was there much antifreeze in the coolant?

Even if there is not enough according to guides, it freezes to a slush, and has to be very low indeed to freeze solid.

If now unfrozen, the only way is to check for a reduced level of coolant. If you're unlucky a core-plug or two have been pushed out, or possibly a cracked thermostat housing.

You have to be very unlucky to have a cracked block.

If no antifreeze then it will likely be curtains for the engine.

Surely no-one is stupid enough to still be running anything liquid cooled without any anti-freeze? Maybe thirty plus years ago it was common.

Thirty plus years ago I knew a car mechanic who had a Mark 3 Cortina. No antifreeze. One night it froze up, he got away with it. The next night it froze up again, he did not get away with it. The stupid sod.

IF you've just done some work on the car and want to run it for a week or so to make sure that everything is okay and you won't have to dissassemble things again, then it may be a sensible choice not to put antifreeze in.

SteveW

No. Many cars will boil with plain water. If you get a leak then just drain the anti-freeze, and put it back in after you fix the leak. Also anti-freeze leaks are easier to spot than plain water. The only thing I would run plain water in is a total loss system on a banger track car. Or a Sentinel.

First I heard of that, and believed that water was best to conduct heat from cylinder walls through micro-boiling. Furthermore the heat capacity of water is higher than an antifreeze mixture.

Can you cite articles that further this?

I usually collect the coolant and reuse.

some vauxhalls (from personal experience) will boil with plain water and not with an anti-freeze mix. 5050 water and ethylene glycol boils at

106 degrees. and of course even higher when pressurised. pure ethylene glycol boils at 197 degrees. When racing bangers the cooling system is total loss and boiling continually during the race, I ran a 5 gallon header tank and always had some water left at the end of each race, so yes boiling water into steam is good at taking heat away, but only for the capacity limit of the system.

In this country it is less important, but if you have to drive much at higher altitude then the use of anti-freeze can make all the difference.

[snip]

Excuse my ignorance, but why?

Because if you had a radiator it would be damaged at the first collision and the car will only manage a few laps with no water.

The only feasible and safe option is to just use an unpressurised water tank mounted under the bonnet with as much capacity as possible, as the water boils it takes a lot of heat from the engine to convert to steam, so although the engine is running at boiling point, it is still being cooled.

The average race is over in 5 minutes or so, which means there is no need to make the cooling system able to work indefinitely.

OK understood, thanks.

I wouldn't. Not any more, anyway. They seem to have mucked around with the antifreeze those of us of a certain age knew and loved. You now get "coolant" that's only good for 2 years - and there doesn't seem to be any of the good old stuff left on the shelves. :( The alternative is the more recent wholly synthetic stuff which is ACE, but costs a *lot* more than the more common alternatives.

Ford coolant lasts for 10 years; that's been the case since at least 2000.

Chris