danny951

Temps here in texas dropped to the teens the last two days. My car is unfortunately sitting outside with little to no anti-freeze in it.. just water, due to a leak I've been trying to locate (filling with a pint or so of water every few weeks).

How much sh** am I in here? Temps should be back up in the 50's on Saturday.

Andy1212

Umm i would say you are pretty f'ed... Hopefully just a freeze plug cracked, but that sure doesnt seem to happen much

Darwantae951

I definitely wouldn't start it until I checked everything out thoroughly. Is there any way you can get it into a garage?

SeanR

Dude, get out there and dump anti-freeze in it.....what little water that is in it will be frozen, but you might be able to minimize any damage.

theporscheguy

Danny,

Water when frozen does ugly things to engines. Even if you have a leak a 50/50 mixture is always a good idea. Hopefully it was not cold long enough to do any damage.

PorscheDoc

Put a 24mm socket on the crank and turn it over by hand with a breaker bar. If it turns easy, you are probably ok as the waterpump is turning.

Either way, I would pull the block drain bolt on the passenger side and see if you can drain water out of it and get some antifreeze in it. Pull the lower radiator hose as well to get the water out of the radiator. Get out the heat gun, etc.

sweetskillsrk

+1 Always keep 50/50 in it. Even if it drinks some coolant temporarily keep her topped off with coolant. I've started keepin a quart of oil and a bottle of coolant in the rear passenger well, just a suggestion man.

Hopefully the freeze didn't screw anything up too bad but there's a really good possibility it did. The expanding forces of ice are destructive. Definitely thaw it out as soon as possible. Good luck.

onspeed

I don't know the temp in arlington... but it's only around mid/low 20s here in Austin meaning a 15/85 ethyl glycol/water mix is about the minimum concentration needed to keep it from freezing given the temperature of the coolant is same as ambient.

M758

If you are lucky only the lower radiator hose popped off. That tend to go first in a freeze either put in water or put a heater there to prevent it getting so cold.

danny951

I think I may have lucked out... Not sure yet -- looked like the overflow tank still had liquid in it, but it was low (as expected with leak I've had). I filled it with anti-freeze, held my breath and turned the key to start it for less than half a second, then off, just to see if it was gonna turn ok. Seemed ok, so I cranked it up and let it warm up, brought it into the garage and turned on a little elec. heater for an hour or so to warm the garage back up. (garage will stay in the 40's or 50s just from the heat from the house.

I could see ice melting from the front of the car that had collected, but don't see any leaks.

I guess I'll really find out if anything was damaged once everything thaws out down here on Saturday.

North Coast Cab

Get a couple of those silver metal incandescant spot lights from HD and lay them udner the car.
They will thaw the hoses out pretty quickly and prevent further damage.
You can't add antifreeze without opening the t-stat and rotating or starting the car is a very bad idea. Let it thaw, inspect, rotate and then start. You could be fine.

piperporsche180944

I have one of them too...

Porsche16V944

i had a car with pure water freeze before... absolutely nothing happened... i parked it until it thawed and drove it to work the next day