son of a.... winter sucked

the little guy helped me put a new battery in the 5.3 impala SS after work. it fired right up, so i got under the hood to start checking stuff. no coolant in the tank, shut it down. the freeze plug from the front of the passenger side head was on the driveway under the car. apparently my 50/50 mix of not even a year old antifreeze was no match for the -15 degree nights we had in january. normally the car is stored indoors for winter but my spot was lost to my buddy buying his wife a vette, so it sat in the driveway this winter.

hopefully nothing else is hurt. i'm thinking about rigging up a fitting to attach a garden hose into the old plug and knocking it back in place then using that to pressure test the system for any other leaks. i can set my home well pressure down to comparable pressure that a cooling system would see. there is no water in the oil at least. i'm cautiously optimistic but also sick to my stomach about what else could have happened.

My guess is that you're ok. The freeze plug did what it was supposed to do.

Your 50/50 mix was not.

I'd guess you had water in the system last summer, then drained what you could, and topped with 50/50, which means you probably had about 1 1/2 liters in a 9 liter system.

Up here, I usually see the opposite- a race car springs a leak and sprays antifreeze all over the track, with the owner insisting he flushed all the winter antifreeze out of it. Really!

Nope, i never put in straight water, since stuff gets cold here even in storage. It was filled with 50/50 with engine and all components/hoses brand new and dry. One time i tried that, and wound up with a motor full of lime green slush.

If it fired right up and didn't hydrolock, you're probably OK.

It got colder than -15 if the block froze, 50/50 is good for -26*f, and usually exposing it to below that temp at night wont freeze it, due to the heat it sees with the sun on it in the day.

Also, always double check your coolant concentration with a hydrometer when you are messing with it, in the event you somehow got a bad batch of antifreeze, though I've never heard of that happening.

We had wind chills down to -43 this Winter Pat, and you are right, berkeley Winter

We get -40 and colder on a somewhat regular basis. The 50/50 coolant that was in my motorcycle froze around -30 or so and was slushy in the -20's, but I don't think that would be froze enough to bust out a freeze plug if it was only -15. Most cars and powersports equipment runs 60/40 up here.

aussiesmg wrote: We had wind chills down to -43 this Winter Pat, and you are right, berkeley Winter

yeah. i remember driving home from work one night and the truck told me it was -14, and when i got out my nose felt like it froze solid from the walk to the house. i'm glad i don't live any more north.

i was reading lots of lsx guys blowing out freeze plugs from the cylinder heads on dyno runs or at the strip, so i'm wondering if the steel plug/aluminum head isn't the best combo to begin with, and some slush was enough to pop it out at such a cold temp. maybe brass would be a better idea.

My cars made it through okay, but had two water pipes in my shop bust, and while I'm not sure it had anything to do with winter, our main sewer line (which is 600ft long) broke in the middle of the winter. Been doing a lot of plumbing and drywall work in the shop lately, and now will have a bunch of yard work ahead of me. Damn winter.

DrBoost wrote: My guess is that you're ok. The freeze plug did what it was supposed to do.

That's not what they're supposed to do

In reply to Knurled:

And while they do at times function as a freeze plug, they are in fact casting plugs. They didn't put them there to blow out when the water in your engine freezes, that's just a side benefit.

Every vehicle in Canada runs 50/50. It starts to gel at -35, and won't push a frost plug out til absolute zero.

if you are getting to absolute zero make sure you keep your coat on...
Absolute zero is -273C!!!

A 50/50 mix has a freezing point of around -40F, not absolute zero.

It was a joke, boys...

It didn't read like a joke. Maybe you should practice more on your own and come back later.

bravenrace wrote: In reply to Knurled: And while they do at times function as a freeze plug, they are in fact casting plugs. They didn't put them there to blow out when the water in your engine freezes, that's just a side benefit.

I've never had a core plug blow out from freezing. The radiator tubes always supplied that function.

bravenrace wrote: It didn't read like a joke. Maybe you should practice more on your own and come back later.

In Canada, jokes about the cold are like your American jokes about the airline food.

Here, it is too cold to have airplanes so we only know about them from Wikipedia. I understand you are to be launching the Goose du Spruce soon?

Streetwiseguy wrote: It was a joke, boys...

you need to clarify that by adding an "eh" on the end of the joke....eh?

ssswitch wrote:

bravenrace wrote: It didn't read like a joke. Maybe you should practice more on your own and come back later.

In Canada, jokes about the cold are like your American jokes about the airline food. Here, it is too cold to have airplanes so we only know about them from Wikipedia. I understand you are to be launching the Goose du Spruce soon?

I've never made a joke about airline food. Ever.

bravenrace wrote:

ssswitch wrote:

bravenrace wrote: It didn't read like a joke. Maybe you should practice more on your own and come back later.

In Canada, jokes about the cold are like your American jokes about the airline food. Here, it is too cold to have airplanes so we only know about them from Wikipedia. I understand you are to be launching the Goose du Spruce soon?

I've never made a joke about airline food. Ever.

Let's be honest, he never made a joke about Canadian winters either...

irish44j wrote: you need to clarify that by adding an "eh" on the end of the joke....eh?

In Mother Canada, joke make you.

Airline food is delicious.

Airlines still serve food?

In reply to Bobzilla:

Peanuts.