That was not done deliberately. Or should I say knowingly.
3 weeks ago I took the E for a quick run down to Annapolis with the dog in the passenger footwell to get an icecream. 3 miles into the trip fuse #7 blew (again) rendering all electric instruments useless. It also feed the + part of the control voltage to the radiator, the negative is supplied by the otter switch when cooling is needed. At this point I mistakenly thought that the fans would run anyway.
I ended up with a very hot car in 70 some degrees, that emitted a very short burst of steam, but it kept going. Once out of the standing traffic, I chose the most unobstructed way home (read no traffic lights or full stops) and just cruised at 55-60 mph.
After about 7-8 miles I left the main road and the car did run a bit rough at idle, but otherwise OK.
As I got home, the oil pressure was down to half of the usual pressure in both running and idle conditions. Idle is normally just under 40 psi and running just under 80 psi. I have a mechanical backup oil pressure gauge in the engine bay. I refitted a new fuse and kept the car at about 1500-2000 rpm for minutes until the fans stopped running. (both the mechanical oil pressure gauge and the instrument show identical readings)
I’ve taken the car for a couple of 4-6 miles runs since and yesterday morning after two weeks off the road I found a puddle of coolant under the car. Using my MightyVac to pressurize the system I ended up tightening about 10 hose clamps to stop the leaks.
My car is running a new waterpump, new tested thermostats, Cool Cat aluminum radiator and Evans waterless coolant. I think especially the latter may have saved my engine from warped cylinder heads.
I see no signs of oil in the coolant or coolant in the oil. Not that I know what synthetic oil and Evans mixed at high temp look like.
Now to my questions:
Does anyone have experience from similar incidents ?
What are the chances that I may have gotten away with just the scare ?
PS: I did about 50 miles in the car yesterday with my eyes peeled at water temp and oil pressure and the car performed flawlessly. Pulled strongly in all gears, including O/D.
Thank you for chiming in Gents.
To clarify, the puff came from the area where the over flow hose ends by the left side of the radiator, not the exhaust. I guess that just indicate that the pressure exceeded the 13psi.
I don’t know.
I’ve found evidence of work done to the top end by the fact that nuts had “teeth marks” on both sides and in the cylinders I’ve seen traces of cross honing when I looked with a borescope.
I don’t know what a dye test is, do you dye one liquid to see if there are traces of dye in the other ?
It is a test to detect combustion gases in the cooling system, which indicates a gasket failure or a cracked head. Most FLAPS have testing kits, like this…
i used Evans on a couple of cars , 1st one a hi-performance BBC Chevy ,7.6L, never had any problem with cooling , and never in 2yrs did it ever boil over (unless over filled ,it does expand more than Ethylene glycol).
and used it in a Mazda rotary engine for 11yrs , they are nasty for over heating in like 2/3 minutes with out any warning.
never boiled , Evans cant boil , if it does you got serious problems, BP is 375 to 400F.
now if you think about it what kills an engine ,is a local hot spot in the cooling system, and it causes detonation, and that will blow gaskets , and score cylinder bores, BUT Evans is like an oil lubrecant!
it has no water, big plus!
quick burp of steam could be a drop of water left in system when changing over system!
the water reaches its bioling point and burps out , a very low pressure cap ,at least 0-to 7psi release.
and some room for expanding Evans. and no such thing as corrosion/rust, great W/P lube.
problem is some race tracks banned it because it is slippery on the race surface!
but it would be fine for a street car, like said 11yrs in a turbocharged rotary!
a local hot spot with WATER/Ethylene, the coolant changes to a bubble of steam(no water to cool at that spot), chamber temps skyrocket, detonation occurs.
from there on its down hill for any cooling ,bubble size increases and engine aint happy!
metal in an engine can handle a hell of a lot more than 200/230F, especially with good synthetic oils!
quality pistons melt around 800/1000F, go figure?
head gaskets have come along way in the past 15/20 yrs.also.
i’m old skool, i use 180F stats, i feel better when there is some room before boilover, and tune the engine accordingly.
and a digital temp gage!
