Frozen Engine

[Ehawley]

I took the beater 626 yesterday to give it to someone and discovered the cooling system had frozen, not enough anti-freeze. I put it in the garage to heat it up and it seems ok except for one thing.

It is missing one of those round metal disks that they put in to seal up the engine block, they look like they are aluminum. There is coolant leaking from here. I looked for the missing disk, but didn't find it anywhere.

My questions is, is there any way to easily replace one of those little plugs? I can only assume that it was pushed out by the ice, so I can't imagine they are welded in. But, given the heat, I am not sure how they are secured.

The car has 220,000 miles on it, so it isn't worth doing any major work, but if there is an easy fix, I would love to hear it.

E.

 

[ForceFed]

Its called a freeze plug and its thre for just this reason..to releive pressure if your Coolant freezes.
That are very cheap and are just pressed in....Usually tapped in with hammer ....They do make rubber ones that slide in and you tighten with a wrench.
Any local parts store should have them.
And put some Anitfreeze in after you replace it.

 

[Ehawley]

That's good to hear, thanks for the info. Off to the autoparts store!

 

[protojason]

Yup, freeze plugs. I just had to help my dad replace freeze plugs in his old firebird were restoring. Unfortunately, It has a Olds v8 in it, which we had to pull the entire engine out because the affected freeze plug was just under the motor mount.

We cleaned up/painted the whole engine and replaced all the freeze plugs at that point. PITA.

But, it's all back in and runs, so thats a plus.

FYI, it's a 68 firebird convertable, was sitting in my granpaps garage for last 20 years....i'm just happy we got it road worth/licensed again. It's still a work in progress.. . but one i stand to inherit some day (good ole sweat equity)

 

[autoxes]

I'd monitor it closely for a few hundred miles as well, sometimes when the block freezes, it cracks it.

 

[iracemine]

(iagree) im sure there are other problems now as well.

 

[autoxes]

He may have gotten lucky and it only popped out the freeze plugs. I normally deal with V8's, (73 Nova, 73 Dart, 2001 GT Mustang, various others) and when they freeze, it wreaks havoc on EVERYTHING.

 

[ForceFed]

(iagree) im sure there are other problems now as well.

The only other problem that could really occur would be a cracked block.
If he replaces the freeze plug and the car runs fine and no leaks are present..then I would say with about 98% certainty that he is OK.
I have blown out a couple of freeze plugs in my early days when I knew nothing about cars...and never had a problem after popping new ones in.

 

[iracemine]

I think at the point that the block is cracked people stop looking. but in my experience I have seen parts of the cooling system trashed as well. this is meant in no way to troll or flame. I am done thank you, and good luck. Remember antifreeze is not expensive and helps the life of your cooling system too.

 

[Ehawley]

Well, we will see. This car has been sitting a while and has had a small coolant leak forever, hence the lack of anti-freeze. A neighbor wanted a beater for their kid, so I offered it up. It it is dead, it is no big deal.

I put it in the garage with the kerosene heater running to warm it up, so hopefully that will mediate any other damage.