Thread: Chances that the motor is OK??

A guy I know didnt put enough antifreeze in when he put coolant in the radiator and it ended up freezing solid on him. We thawed it out and everything but discovered water in the oil now ( obviously something cracked). Now my plan is to topswap my car, and take all the parts from my motor and swapping it to his ( no problem here). But what are the chances that it wont throw a bearing or something because of the little bit of water in the oil ( did not run it after we seen the water in the oil ).

If it didn't run you should be ok

we ran it to thaw it out. But no water was in the oil till it thawed completely out.

could be blown up, running it to thaw it was a bad idea.

do a compression test before anything else. and a pressure test on the coolant system as well.

Originally Posted by scottydoggs

could be blown up, running it to thaw it was a bad idea.

do a compression test before anything else. and a pressure test on the coolant system as well.

Yes but i think any damage done, was done when it froze and expanded.

heating the block with ice inside still is not a good idea, very hot vs very very cold = cracks.

if something was to crack while being frozen, it would have been a freeze out plug popping and coolant/water hitting the floor under the car. as thats what they were made to do, hens why its called a freeze out plug.

the upper intake may have blown as well, that could be where the water got in the oil as well. you can take the tb off and look inside the intake to see if its wet inside. it should be bone dry.

but before you think of doing a top swap, test those 2 items first. make sure the block is still good.

Originally Posted by scottydoggs

heating the block with ice inside still is not a good idea, very hot vs very very cold = cracks.

if something was to crack while being frozen, it would have been a freeze out plug popping and coolant/water hitting the floor under the car. as thats what they were made to do, hens why its called a freeze out plug.

the upper intake may have blown as well, that could be where the water got in the oil as well. you can take the tb off and look inside the intake to see if its wet inside. it should be bone dry.

but before you think of doing a top swap, test those 2 items first. make sure the block is still good.

This is total misinformation......"freeze plugs" are there because of the casting process during block production. they will almost never save a block from freeze damage. i used to have a picture of the side of a block broken completely out with a freeze plug in the center
of the broken chunk but i cant find it atm. Core plug - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

there will always be the chance of the block cracking when water freezes in a engine. but ive seen those plugs popped out due to ice more then cracked blocks.

i look at it this way, if your engine froze, and a plug popped out, good chance the engine is still good. at least the ice had somewhere to expand to.