About a couple of miles from the office today temperature needle went as far past maximum as it could go. Pulled over, stopped and it sorted itself out after a couple of mins, set off again and went back up in about a minute. Made it to the company car park and just as arrived engine cut out. Have spoken to the garage I got it from and he said sounded like the engine was frozen, to top up the anti freeze in the radiator and as the day thaws out (fingers crossed) should be ok. Is there anything else I can do? Should I try start it again or leave it for a while, want to move it to a space that catches the sun.
Any advice as always much appreciated, will be happy to get it home and use the tram until the weather abates
How far and how long were you driving for before this happened???and how long have you had the Mx/roadster from the said garage and when did they last do a service on her???if it as no antifreeze in there then i would be straight down there for a good rant.
In the mean time i would try to start her again,and move her if you wish and leave her running for a while and check the hoses for water flow and are not leaking???and the cooling fan is kicking in,are you sure she was not over heating???
Thanks Wayne, have had the car for just short of 6mths now, was servied and MOT’d when I got it. Had done about a mile before temperature went past hot. Have started again and moved it to a spot in sunlight, will get a mate to take me to a garage for anti freeze at lunch and will top up and see how it goes this afternoon. Ran for a couple of minutes, temp started going up again but no leaks underneath.
Well if the garage you got it from as cut corners(and personally would have no faith in what they have done or saying they have done on you Mx/roadster,and find a lot better garage)),i would personally go down there and kick up a storm,it could of been a lot worse on the engine and colling system,pipes etc,you should not be touching the antifreeze for a good 2 years if the service had been done right or unless you get a leak???
I would now keep an eye on things,leaks ect after it as thawed out.
Let me know,and you must voice your opinion to the garage…bad workman ship…name and shame.
Before running your engine again give the top and bottom radiator hoses a squeeze. If the coolant is frozen they will be rock hard, in which case don’t even think about running your engine. If the coolant has frozen around your water pump you could damage it, or your timing belt, or both. Damaged water pump will give you lots of overheating problems. Good news is that anti-freeze and water pumps are cheap, and both can be changed by a DIY sort of person in a few hours.
If you do decide to have a go at the garage try to answer the following question before going down there: Can you prove that no one else drained the coolant since the last time the garage did it? If not you really won’t have a leg to stand on.
Before read the previous mail started it and moved into sun. Topped it up with anti freeze, let the engine run for less than five mins, temp started rising and noticed steam coming from passenger side of engine, had a look and fluid dripping down from under the manifold? (half doughnut shaped metal in picture) any ideas what’s causing? Not going to move will get the AA out and to a garage if needs be.
There is a coolant pipe that runs under the manifold and goes to the heater, it’s metal and I suppose it could have cracked with frozen water in it, or the seals mght have gone. The coolant hose to the radiator is under there too.
AA man found a split pipe under the manifold, has covered it in some new type of wonder tape that he reckons is as good as a permanent fix. Car going in for a service next month, will get it replaced then. He filled up the radiator with straight water now have to drain it and fill with anti freeze/water mix is there an easy way to do that?
Just noticed the age of your car so it could be quite possible that the radiator is silted up. Does the radiator fan come on when the temperature rises?
Glad you have traced the fault. Another thing to look out for in this weather is core plugs. These are small 25mm sized plugs that are force fitted into the engine block. They are designed to be pushed out if the coolant freezes so as not to crack the block. I have had one of these on a previous car rust through (Montego). These are very easy to replace if you can get to them. Just hit with a hammer and screwdriver and prise out. The new one just pushes in until it won’t go anymore and then you gently tap into place. You then have to replace all the coolant. The best way to avoid this, and any other problems re freezing coolant is to make sure that you have antifreeze, I know that this sounds bloody obvious, but you will be amazed by the number of garages that say that they added antifreeze and either have not or have not added the correct amount. an easy way to check is to remove a small amount of water from the rad and place it in the freezer to see what happens. Also water with Glycol tastes very sweet (DON’T DRINK IT THOUGH!) just wet your finger in the top of the rad and touch on your tongue (an old army trick).
Actually these are to fill the holes left from casting core supports which stop the sand cores getting moved around as the molten metal flows in to the mould. They can get pushed out by frozen water, but that is not what they are for and they aren’t designed to reduce damage from freezing (that is what the anti-freeze is for).
In this case the clue is in the name - “core plug” plugs the hole left by the casting core. You’ll find the same things pressed in to holes in the cylinder head and inlet maifolds of most engines. Inlet manifolds certainly don’t fill up with frozen water.
Well Captain, I have been misinformed. I have held the belief that core plugs were facilitate the expansion of freezing water. I have myself experienced engine coolant pushing one of these plugs out (Allegro 1979). Upon further investigation, I find that your explanation for the core plug is the correct one and mine is just a bonus of them being there in the first place, so I bow to your greater knowledge. Where the confusion lies is in the name. Please read below…
Core plugs,
sometimes wrongly called freeze plugs or frost plugs, are plugs that fill the coreholes found on internal combustion engines. The sand casting cores are used to form the internal cavities in the engine block or cylinder head(s), usually forming the coolant passages. The traditional plug is a thin, domed, disc of metal which is pressed into a machined hole in the casting. In some high-performance engines the core plugs are large diameter pipe plugs.
Core plugs can often be a source of troublesome leaks as a result of internal cooling system corrosion. Ease of replacement depends on accessibility. In many cases the plug area will be difficult to reach and using a mallet to perform maintenance or replacement will be nearly impossible without special facilities. Expanding rubber plugs are available as replacements when access is a problem.
Freeze plug
A true freeze plug is an expansion plug located in the side of an engine block that is supposed to protect the block against freeze damage. Water expands when it turns to ice, and if the coolant does not have enough antifreeze protection it can freeze and crack the engine block. The freeze plugs (there are usually several) are supposed to pop out under such conditions to relieve the pressure on the block.
If it helps I didn’t have the faintest clue what there were for until I got a job designing castings with internal cores [:D] We call them D-plugs too, just to add to the confusion.
They don’t. To Americans, all freeze (or frost) plugs are core plugs, but not all core plugs are frost plugs. Frost plugs are usually identified as specific core plugs on the blocks; these do have a specific purpose, and their popping out is not as a consequence of engineering chance… You can even get block heaters to replace these plugs. Performance Ford blocks use screw-in freeze plugs.
A mate in the US reckons things are warming up a bit now that his daily high is gone above -15 Celcius. He thinks thats warm enough to get out and work on his new workshop…
On the engine blocks I’ve been involved with (back when I was a development engineer running durability testing for OEMs, including cold starts at -40) the core plugs were there just to plug holes. Yes, ice will push them out, but that really won’t stop the ice elsewere in the block (or nice soft ally heads) expanding and potentially cracking the block (or head) anyway. Design intent is to plug core supports. No analysis is done to check what happens should the coolant freeze, no design effort is put in to making them any kind of anti-icing feature, no testing is done without the correct amount of anti-freeze in the engine. The people who design, manufacture and sell the engines think they are just core plugs, in Europe at least. I’ve only worked for one American OEM.
