Alfa Romeo Forum banner

1.9 Coolant boiled away had to replace with water!

2K views 14 replies 9 participants last post by  mikeyb91 
#1 ·
Hi all,

So a few weeks ago I had my waterpump/cambelt done and I guess at such time the coolant needed refilling. Sadly the garage seemed to have forgotten to actually put back on my filler cap! (Joy of joys!)

At the weekend I got caught in an hours worth of traffic and the Alfa got really hot and boiled away all the water where the cap was off.

As an emergency I had to replace the lost coolant with water out the tap (about 3.5 litres)

So I am guessing it's mostly water in there now, which can't be good for the block/head?
Is there a way to drain the water and replace with antifreeze? Or can I just keep topping up with concentrate and the water will be diluted slowly?

Thanks!
 
#3 ·
Think there is a drain at the bottom of the radiator,


Any spelling/ grammatical errors are purely there to annoy!
 
#7 ·
Thanks t3yls! That looks like a pretty cool but of kit to have in general!

I'd get it back to the garage who did the waterpump and get them to sort it. Hopefully the engine hasn't suffered any damage from the overheating.
That was going to be my next question... do these engines suffer badly after getting a bit hot under the collar? It absolutely stunk this morning on the way to work - not sure if it was all the coolant that had boiled over burning off the exhaust or something more sinister?


Thanks, Mike.
 
#6 ·
Water is actually better when it comes to heat transfer and keeping engine cold. However it has a nasty property that it will freeze at 0C and do a lot of damage when it does that. Also if you do it a lot whole cooling system will be covered with limescale which isn't good. Get a some fresh concentrated antifreeze (rather than readymix) and top it up - you don't actually need that much to keep it from freezing in this climate.
 
#8 ·
Just coolant boiling off is not a problem, coolant boiling off and then overheating the engine will do all sorts of damage. So it's a question of how long you've been running without coolant. Typical problems after that are from warped head/head gasket failure to going as far as melted pistons (or if you caught it early enough, nothing).
Also a very bad thing that people do - you have to let the engine cool down before topping up the coolant, otherwise something will crack. Some engines are so bad when it comes to thermal shock that you have fill them with oil when cold.
 
#9 ·
Get the whole lot drained out pronto and refilled with the right mix of antifreeze.
It's the middle of winter, there's bound to be freezing days and nights to come.
 
#10 · (Edited)
Disconnect bottom radiator hose to drain the water out and refill with correct coolant mix. The bottom lower hose will be on a spring clip, push the clips in and pull off...simples ;) You definitely don't want just water in there at this time of year(or any time of year for that matter)

CS
 
#12 ·
Actually, water does boil a lot easier than glycol used in antifreeze (100C vs almost 200C) so antifreeze is probably still there in right concentration - also if they used correct amount and it was originally around 50% mix, even after replacing half of it (and that much did not boil off) with water it should still be good down to at least -10C - you can test it easily with antifreeze tester.
But there is a chance that there was something damaged when you've overheated the engine so i would check that as well.
 
#13 ·
Great! Thanks as always for your help guys, I have topped up with concentrate and given it a few long trips since - the coolant is a nice orange colour now so I think there's a fair amount of coolant in there.

The engine never overheated according to the gauge, it was still sat at 90 degrees but it was obviously having to work hard to stay there (fan on constant) and I didn't top up until it was totally cool, so fingers crossed it hasn't damaged anything. There's no oil in the water or filler cap mayonnaise so I have faith!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top