No antifreeze in car, cooling system full of ice ... need advice

[Ben Lessani]

Hi guys and girls.

After an awesome holiday - I've come back to some rather rubbish news. I popped the bonnet on my beloved to find the expansion tank's contents were frozen solid, along with that, both metal pipes in the cooling system have burst and I have little hope for the radiator. I can't see the core plugs at the back of the block, so I don't know if they have blown out.

Does anyone have any advice as to what to do next?

[rubjonny]

id say core plugs have gone too, get yasen a wee mirror and have a look.  You have a nice few days ahead of you putting all that right, I'd have the waterpump off and pretty much all the coolant hoses out and give everythign a good check over.  Heaster matrix may not have enjoyed the freeze either, suggest a new one is purchased and fitted

[Horney]

Ouch! Glad I live in the pansey south. I've left two cars over winter with no anti freeze in and on both occasions no freezing occured.

Nick

[Ben Lessani]

This is north west weather - I'm not even in Glasgow at the moment. I'm working over the week - and at night its going to be far too cold to work on the car! Man this sucks...

I can strip the bits off over the week and see how they've faired, annoying thing is I don't have a garage, so I have nowhere to put the car in the interim.

Do you know any good methods of pressure testing all the bits to ensure they're is no cracks or leaks?

[Dec]

  Doesnt sound pretty, never really though anti-freeze did much

Hope you get it sorted mate.

[Mew]

never really though anti-freeze did much

It's in the name

[Dec]

Haha yer but I didnt think that the engine would actually freeze without it!

[Ben Lessani]

Right, all in pitch black darkness, I've managed to remove the metal pipe, which has at least 1 hole in it. I've managed to snap a sensor wire from doing it all in the dark

I've pulled all the pipes from the expansion tank, matrix, pump, block and head and they were all full of slush. Fingers crossed that its not done any damage to any of these. I'm going to let these thaw out over the next day and I'll weld the hole(s) in the metal pipe.

I guess I'll have to improvise a compression test to make sure all the other bits are ok.

Lesson learnt here guys - get your antifreeze levels checked (most garages can check the percentage)!

[DarnPB]

The ice in the block will take a while to melt as the metal will remain a pretty constant temp. I would see if you can rig up some kind of electric heater to shove under the bonnet to raise the temperature a little and assist the thawing. But be carefull of any petrol fumes otherwise you could start a fire.

[jamie_pyrite]

No need to get a garage to check it - We have this little dropper test with little balls inside. Tells us if the ratio is right