Posted by Don in NH [96.61.88.160] on Sunday, February 15, 2015 at 21:08:25 :
In Reply to: Re: Unfixed itself (happened again) posted by daveyKinPa [173.49.178.136] on Sunday, February 15, 2015 at 19:09:11 :
Thanks for the suggestions - I opened the petcock and it flowed, but sort of dribbly as if it were slushy. I topped off the radiator and ran the engine without the radiator cap on until I could see that the thermostat opened (it started to steam, and the antifreeze changed to cloudy from clear). After letting it warm up a bit more I opened the petcock again and it appeared to flow a bit better (I'm not completely sure this isn't wishful thinking though).
As for temperature, I have an annoying thermocouple on a lousy multimeter, which indicated that the bottom of the radiator was 0F, compared to -13F in the air. When I put it directly into the open radiator fluid it was about 148F, suggesting it was somewhat warm, but overall I don't really trust the thing in terms of accuracy.
With my frozen hand I could feel that the top of the radiator was hot and the bottom was cold. The part of the lower radiator hose closest to the radiator outlet was also cold, but up near the pump it was hot. I'm thinking that the radiator shouldn't be that good at removing heat (i.e. the bottom should still be somewhat warm) so that there is restricted flow in the radiator? I didn't drive it, but idling it didn't overheat. Had to give up because before my fingers fell off.
Freeze plugs look good. Hopefully I was able to mix in some stronger anti-freeze and prevent this from happening again.
Thanks for the suggestions.
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