OUCH, how not to winterize your Sprite

[Luke_Healey]

I own too many vehicles. I've told myself I'm going to have to get rid of a few things so I can keep better track of the maintenance history of them all.

Last spring, I filled my '66 Sprite with a 50/50 mix of antifreeze. Sometime in the middle of the summer, my three way lower radiator hose burst. I replaced it and filled the car with water. I must have told myself I'd replace it with legitimate coolant again. I must have gotten side tracked. I drove the car the rest of the summer thinking I had antifreeze in it. I check all of my cars with an antifreeze tester before winter comes. I must have been so convinced my Sprite had antifreeze in it that I neglected to check it.

Yesterday I was working on my truck in my garage, since this is the first time it's been warm enough to do so in Iowa since November. I hear water dripping and look over at my sprite. Drip drip drip! So I put my hand under the dripping and it is totally devoid of glycol :frown: 100% water.

You know the rest of the story most likely... The source of the dripping was the missing freeze plug near cylinder 1. I saw a wall of solid ice in the void.

Solid ice throughout the block, head, radiator, heater core.

So I pushed the car outside with a sinking feeling in my stomach.

I pulled the dipstick and there was no water in the oil.

I hunted down my compression tester and pulled the plugs. Cold compression with my half dead battery was 160, 165, 165, and 160psi across the four cylinders. No water in any of the cylinders.

So, I put the plugs in, pulled the choke, and said a little prayer in a british accent. The car fired up pretty quickly, surprisingly. After it warmed a bit and I released the choke, it idles and sounds exactly the same as it always has. I melted all of the water in the engine. My lower radiator hose was still solid as a rock though. It was about 45F here yesterday. After the car warmed up enough, I shut her down, pulled the block drain plug back behind the carbs. I found my popped welch plug on the garage floor and put it in the car. I pulled the radiator drain plug and it drained what it could. I noticed my heater box has water running out of it, so I will have to solder or replace the heater core.

So is there anything else I need to check to see if I've catastrophically ruined the head or block? The plugs looked like they normally do after it ran. There was not any water coming out of the muffler, and there was no white or black smoke either.

I'm a moron for letting this happen. The sad part is that I'm normally really diligent about checking antifreeze and winterizing my vehicles with new oil, etc...

 

[Bayless]

Sounds like you maybe got lucky. If you ran it that much and there's still no water in the oil and you don't have water leaking out anywhere else and you have that good compression then you're probably good to go. You might want to keep an eye on the water pump as it could have suffered a bit. Good luck.

 

[BugEyeBear]

WOW! Does sound like you got lucky!
Those "Freeze Plug" holes are really CORE HOLES designed to provide a place for removing the sand cores after casting.
While they can help to prevent a cracked block/head during freezing conditions, they don't really provide enough expansion room to completely protect the block and head from cracking during a hard freeze.
BUT Again, you might have gotten lucky!

When you refill the block w 50/50 antifreeze/water in the spring, run the engine for awhile & check the oil for water contamination (milky white in the oil), and also check the antifreeze for oil contamination.
IF there is a small crack it might take a while to reveal itself.
So check both often during your spring runs (& also keep an eye on the exhaust for steam).

OVERALL, I'd say just HOPE you got lucky.
TRY to not lose any sleep over it...
Afterall, there's not much you can do now to change what happened!
Think of it as a lesson learned & double check that you see GREEN in the radiator before next winter!

-Bear-

(Given how cold this winter has been, you probably are NOT alone in this one...)

 

[Luke_Healey]

We hit -29F here. One of the coldest winters I can remember. The ice had probably been in there since well before then though.

 

[jlaird]

I for three think you got off lucky. A good lesson for us all.

 

[Luke_Healey]

I thought I'd report back that the Sprite seems to be none the worse for the wear. It runs exactly the same as it did. The only victim in this tragic oversight was the heater core. The engine is holding water without leaks and runs at the same temperatures it always has, and in the same manner. Compression is the same. I lucked out and none of the other freeze plugs leak. I pounded the one that fell out back in and all seems to be as it was. Did I mention that Iowa managed to reach a legitimate -29F this winter?


Now I'll just try to forget this ever happened.

 

[drooartz]

Alright -- once again our little cars prove to be tougher than they look. :thumbsup: