Coolant water frozen - what next?

[440 4 speed]

As I noted earlier, this "drain the water" isn't going to work for you if the car still has a cabin heater in it. The in and out tubes are at the TOP of the heating unit. Despite draining the radiator, block, etc the heater will stay full of water and freeze.

I learned this the hard way after we had to change a rear frost plug in Dad's '76 Fury Sports 318. Split the trans from the engine, changed the plug with the old GF's Father and we had no antifreeze so after a test run with water we drained everything for the night before a 400 mile trip the next morning.

Next day I was driving, -25C, Mom had her mitts on her feet, my Sister was buried in blankets in the back and we were about 40 minutes from destination and the heater still hadn't thawed out. Got nailed in a radar trap on the 401 in Oshawa and pulled over. Cop came up to the window, I pointed at my Mother going hypothermic and he said "get her to the hospital". Today that speed would have been stunt driving, car seized and licence suspended.

For those who ever get in the position where their heater doesn’t work.
February 1967. -25F. Had to make a 180 mile trip. Fan wouldn’t blow any hot air. It was Sunday, I stopped at a local guy that sold fuel and tires etc, we put the car in and could not get it to blow warm air.
Solution was to get two metal tobacco cans, punch holes in the sides, put a roll of toilet paper in each one. Saturate it with methyl hydrate and light it. Had to keep my toque and mitts on. It worked! Problem was the temperature control valve was not working.
It was a 1957 Meteor that would normally cook you out. At that temperature you usually drove with bare hands.

 

[Bird 426]

You are the luckiest guy in the world if nothing got hurt. I am on the west side of Illinois, 200 mi or so from you, and it was 14 below last night.

 

[QuickBpBp]

Sorry to hear you forgot about this... I raced for years and you MUST run water at the track and I always waited till as late as possible to fill it with antifreeze for the winter. Thankfully I never forgot but a friend of mine did and it split the one side of his block between the two core/freeze plugs on the driver's side. He was able to pull the motor check everything and had local guy who was very knowledgeable weld the block. He drilled the ends, then put pins in across the crack and welded them. Never had an issue with leaks. Hopefully you get lucky.

 

[WileERobby]

When all is said and done, hope you luck out without any damage.

 

[RemCharger]

You are the luckiest guy in the world if nothing got hurt. I am on the west side of Illinois, 200 mi or so from you, and it was 14 below last night.

Ok, so 14 below is 14 degrees less than the point that a certain brine solution freezes if I'm not mistaken

 

[MCODECUDA]

Thank you for correcting me. You are correct of course! my bad. I sincerely apologize. I have gone back and edited my post. Some things bug a person and I understand that. For me, it's when people refer to the Passon 5 speed transmission (made by Passon Performance) as a "Passion 5 speed transmission". See New Transmissions
Terry W.

My comment was to the general audience and it wasn’t directed towards anyone individually.

 

[MCODECUDA]

Must be from the South, as they're definitely referred to as "frost" plugs up here, as they blow out when the block gets frosty!

I’ve never seen one that blew out due to the block freezing. Perfect example here with the OP. He never mentioned that the plugs blew out.

 

[MCODECUDA]

Ok, so 14 below is 14 degrees less than the point that a certain brine solution freezes if I'm not mistaken

As I recall a 50/50 mix of antifreeze is good until -35 below. It might even work below that temperature. I didn’t have enough antifreeze in a car before and the radiator looked like it had slush in it.

 

[gdrill]

I have found frost plugs, yes frost plugs laying on rails before. When I cracked a block, yes I did it, it pushed out the outside between 3 & 5.

Your oil won’t change color until it is ran and blended well! Then it will be light chocolate milk.

 

[MCODECUDA]

Crack one of those beers and see what happens! You'll either have a popsicle or the drink you need right now!

Funny story about beer freezing. One winter we were going skiing and had my ‘73 Dart. We put some beers in the under dash vent boxes and when we went to drink them they were frozen solid.

 

[WileERobby]

Your oil won’t change color until it is ran and blended well! Then it will be light chocolate milk.

But it will taste good

 

[1 Wild R/T]

My Red Challenger was a /6 car originally, I was collecting parts for a V8 swap from the day I bought it... But I drove it with the / for a couple years... The last winter with the / I went skiing & left the car parked at home in the driveway... When I got home I jumped in & went for a drive... About 4-5 miles later the thing was barely running, when I popped the hood all the freeze plugs yes freeze plugs.. Were laying on the oil pan rail... I banged them back into their holes with a rock & filled the radiator with water.... Drove it for another four months before I began my V8 swap....

BSB67 if your gonna give me a Red X could do us all the courtesy of explaining what you don't agree with..

 

[RemCharger]

As I recall a 50/50 mix of antifreeze is good until -35 belo. It might even work below that temperature. I didn’t have enough antifreeze in a car before and the radiator looked like it had slush in it.

I didn't chop hairs with the f* vs c*, but I don't believe you will ever Crack a block with a 50/50 mixture. I believe it's around a -37c rated as liquid.

 

[RemCharger]

@Sahara would know better, probably gets another -6 than we do.
But from the cool stories i recall, in the upnorth from here, you would drive into camp with quick connects on your heater hoses and plug on to the machine. So you could light up a D10 dozer in the middle of nowhere.
pretty cool solution.

 

[Sahara]

@Sahara would know better, probably gets another -6 than we do.
But from the cool stories i recall, in the upnorth from here, you would drive into camp with quick connects on your heater hoses and plug on to the machine. So you could light up a D10 dozer in the middle of nowhere.
pretty cool solution.

Yup, we had installed hydraulic hose quick couplers in our trucks and diesel engine coolant lines so that we could just drive up to a unit, couple on, and circulate hot coolant through the engine.

 

[Sahara]

I didn't chop hairs with the f* vs c*, but I don't believe you will ever Crack a block with a 50/50 mixture. I believe it's around a -37c rated as liquid.

Never heard of a block cracking with 50/50 or anything close to that mix. At the wrong mixture it will gel up and refuse to flow, but I’ve never heard of a cracked block from it.
Lots of snapped oil pump driveshafts from trying to pump non synthetic oil, though.

 

[Black_Sheep]

Even if you have heat in the garage, you should add antifreeze or drain the cooling system. We’ve had ice storms knock out the power and things cool off very quickly when it’s sub zero.

 

[Ron H]

BSB67 if your gonna give me a Red X could do us all the courtesy of explaining what you don't agree with..

Yeah, that would be a FBBO neighbor like sort a thing to do huh..

 

[440 4 speed]

I have found frost plugs, yes frost plugs laying on rails before. When I cracked a block, yes I did it, it pushed out the outside between 3 & 5.

Your oil won’t change color until it is ran and blended well! Then it will be light chocolate milk.

I respectfully disagree. We may call them frost plugs, but that wasn’t what they were designed for. Lots of countries in the world would have no use for frost frost plugs. They still have plugs though.

 

[440beep]

Well here’s a good sign, I hope, that the garage isn’t fully artic, all the water I drained yesterday has been sitting in the garage and it’s not frozen through, only the outer 1/4” is frozen and the rest is still liquid. And the temp has been -3 to 3.