engine half-FROZEN this morning!!

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[Dstanic]

Today (and yesterday I guess... didn't drive anywhere) we finally got hit with some cold weather.  -20C (-4F) this morning and my car started up (didnt' sound too healthy, but considering how cold it was didn't think much of it.  I let it run for a min or 2 as I cleared the snow off of it, and it seemed to be running okay.  

I drive down the street, turn the corner, and just as I'm trying to go through the interestion the car stops and DIES.  I try to start it but it wouldn't crank over.  I pushed it back out of the intersection and pop the hood... damn, the coolant in the reservior looks like Slush Puppy!  I don't remember fully, but I think the upper rad hose (from the t-stat) was kinda hard from frozen coolant aswell.  

Anyways I try a few more times and it finally starts up again.  I left it in D and kept my foot on the gas (and the other ready on the brake) and flipped it in Neutral when I got near other intersections.  My drive to work is only ~1.5miles so I wasn't overly concerned about it having problems, I just kept my eyes on the guages.  As I turned onto Edward street (where my work is) the temp needle started climbing FAST.  I quickly rolled into the parking lot at work and shut her down as the needle got near the red zone.  It was still blowing ice cold air in the car and my windshield all iced up.  Popped the hood again and the coolant in the reservior hadn't really moved much.

Let it sit for a few min and when the engine cooled down a bit I pulled her inside the heated washbay to unthaw.  Using a coolant guage it read that mine was only good for -10C    my stupid fault from topping it up with too much water back when I changed the heatercore.  I drained a gallon of my watered-down coolant mixture and dumped in another gallon of full strength AC Delco green coolant, I'll have to check tomorrow what % the mixture is good for now, but hopefully it shouldn't have this problem again.

So lesson learned... make sure you have proper antifreeze/water %, especially if you live in the North!!

Since it is suppose to be cold tonight again I plugged in the block heater (don't know if it even works) and added a bottle of gasline antifreeze to the tank to make it run better.

[pat]

i forgot about that once with my old 71 caprice.  didn't matter that it was about 25%coolant/75 water and turned to slush cause it just sat in the winter,  but my daily puked and i had to drive it.  i went to put in a 195 thermostat so i could have heat and my intake was all green slush inside.  it didn't attempt to overheat though.

[Euro]

great...lol i have to go start mine today just cause it hasn't been driven since about..oh 24 hours ago

[5speedz34]

Yeah, I've been driving the Envoy lately. The thing barely turned over and I replaced the battery on monday. The post was stripped, I don't even want to go into details at how much of a pain in the ass that was.

[TurboSedan]

whenever i add coolant i'll buy one jug of 100% coolant.  i always keep an empty coolant jug i have stored in my garage.  i dump half the coolant out of the new jug into the empty jug, so both jugs are half full of 100% coolant, then i fill them both up to the top with water.  i never add straight coolant or water (or waste money on those pre mixed 50/50 jugs).

so far we've had temps go to at least -20*F overnight and both my Cutlass nor my Regal has had a problem starting in the morning.  i've actually never even messed with the Regal's cooling system yet.  i don't even know if it has Dexcool or the regular stuff.  i do know that the heater sucks ass though, even though the coolant temp reads normal according to the gauge (stays right around 3/8 of the way up when the engine is fully warmed up).  the scans i've done with Dan's LS1M show normal coolant temps as well.  everytime i drive the Regal i have to have the heater on full blast.  the Cutlass on the other hand will damn near cook you with the heater on full blast and that's with the temp gauge at 3/8 of the way up as well.

[Euro]

damn....never heard of that happening before tho!!!!

[Dstanic]

Yesterday we had a 2000 Sonoma come in on trade, and the coolant also looked like Slush Puppy.. LOL

On a side note, I think my struts are finally un-froze too.  It was like riding with a bunch of flat tires...

[Euro]

ahh been there!

[sl3196]

ahh been there!

Haha my old cutlass did that a few times.

[DiscoStudd]

Happened to my old GA back when I didn't know how to properly flush the radiator.  Actually I was staying at a hotel 150 miles away from home and it was -10* with a windchill of -30*.  Car wouldn't fire and the battery went dead.  Luckily the hotel had a tow truck there that was giving people jump starts for free.  Once I got the car running and back out on the highway, it did the same thing where the temp gauge almost pegged in the red zone (with no heat) then settled back to normal.

Moral of the whole story?  When you flush your coolant yourself, fill the system with half it's capacity of straight coolant and top it off the rest of the way with straight water.  That way you'll end up with the proper 50/50 mix.  If you start adding a 50/50 mix right after you flush, the water that's remaining in the system will dilute your mixture...

[GutlessSupreme]

Hope nothing cracked...

I remember last year the Cutlass was giving me all sorts of overheating problems and it only had water in it for a while so I didn't keep spilling/draining coolant. I left the draincock open at night to drain out the water so it wouldn't expand and crack the radiator or anything, and just hoped the block would be fine.

[crazy k]

well I just did a full flush yesterday.   I'd been driving all week with mostly water in the radiator, since I'm trying to fix a few things under my hood including a faulty temp gauge....

I drained the radiator on Tuesday night, and Wednesday it was freezing.. and getting colder, so I had to get it done.  I used 1 and 1/2 gallons of straight prestone and added about 1/2 gallon of distilled water.  couple with remaining water in the system...  so I need to check for the right mix today, I was aiming for about 60/40.

now my past stories....

 the first time I did a radiator flush was before I realized that water hung around in the engine....   about 1 week into owning my first car.   cripes, that was 9 years ago!  it was getting too cold and i didn't want to work on it any longer so I let all the water that was around drain out and packed up and said I would finish tomorrow.    lesson learned... When i started the car, a 75 Buick with a 455,  the water pump was frozen by ice and I broke both of the belts.  I was a Noob to cars once you know!

my current nightmare is my 92 vert, which I was doing a flush on when the fuel pump quit, in the middle of a below freezing day.  I drained the radiator, but I had to waste 2 gallons of new antifreeze by poring it into the engine though the thermostat's port.  I spun the waterpump by hand for a long time, but the rubber lines to the heater core froze solid and are choked by ice still.