I haven't had such a good morning so far.
I went about my morning routine as usual.
Scurry around to get ready for work. It is Monday so it is trash pickup
day, so I've got that to do also.
It has been VERY cold here in Northern Virginia for the past day or so.
I don't know what the low was last night, but at 7AM it was 9 degrees out
(all temperatures Fahrenheit) and I had heard the 30 to 40 mph winds howling
around the house all night.
So as I said .. go about my routine.
Go out to the driveway and fire up the TR4 which has been sitting unused all
weekend.
It is my primary commuter transportation, and has been so for a year or more
now and is generally it is pretty reliable as long as you can put up with
all its quirkiness.
I lean in the passenger door, pull the choke, turn the key.
The heater fan lets out a screech and a yowl as I remember it has done in
years past on really cold days.
Off goes the heater, turn the key again and the starter turns over the
engine, much more slowly than normal, as if the 10W40 in the sump is
molasses.
To its credit, it fires up right away, just like always.
I test the heater fan again . . its still howling so I decide to let the car
warm up some first.
In the mean time I'll gather up the trash and secure it so it won't blow
away when I take it to the curb.
I notice that the scuttle / vent door between the windshield wipers is
frozen closed with a bead of ice around it.
I mentally try to decide whether I should pour some hot water on it, or just
drive to work with it closed.
A few minutes later I'm back again and am going to push the choke in because
the engine is racing very high.
I run my idle speed pretty high to help out the old generator in the car.
The trip home from work is ALWAYS in the dark, and often the trip to work is
too.
So with all the lights and the heater fan going while sitting at stop
lights, it is easier just to leave the idle up around 1100 so the generator
makes enough juice to keep things going.
Its been working fine that way for a year or more so why change it?
With the choke pulled out though, once the car is warmed up some, it will
race up towards 2000 rpm, and annoy the neighbors. . .
So out I go with a glass of hot water to unfreeze the fresh air vent door.
I looked down and saw some water already dripping on the ground.
In a hurry, I open the door and peek at the temp gage. It's going up
towards the hot mark, but isn't all the way there yet.
(This car NEVER get up past the midpoint in the normal range)
I don't remember if I killed the engine then or if I wanted to take a look
under the hood first.
Either way, once the hood was up, I could see the coolant overflow bottle
(my addition) erupting like a volcano.
I think the engine was still running and I then reached in and shut it down.
The eruption stopped pretty quickly thereafter.
GREAT.
No time to do any diagnostic work. I'm late as it is and its cold as hell
and there's no chance I'm taking the TR4 to work.
So I'm off to revive the TR6 which has been slumbering in the garage for at
least a month.
A while later I'm squeezing the TR6 out of the garage and around the poor
old TR4.
I notice on the ground that there is a long trail of green coolant running
down the driveway from this morning's events.
Is it my imagination, or does it look slushy?
I didn't stop to check . . . I just cursed a lot and went off to work. .
.knocking on the wood dash board that the TR6 would be okay.
So . . . any ideas what happened or how to start diagnosing it?
I thought that even if you had a pretty poor mixture of antifreeze and water
in your system that you were protected to well below zero degrees.
I don't think it got THAT cold last night.
I'm trying to figure some way that I can rationalize that the thermostat got
stuck closed or something and cause some weird behavior.
I'll be pretty pissed if the coolant froze and cracked something.
IF that were the case, where does the crack usually happen?
Up in the cylinder head?
Near the thermostat housing maybe?
(I'm just guessing)
One thought that occurred to me on the way to work . . . the temp gage
wasn't up to the point that it would cause an eruption like that.
Also the activity stopped very quickly after I shut the engine off.
Have I got a leak between the combustion chamber and the water jacket. . .
and I'm pumping "exhaust" into the cooling system?
I guess If I go home and fire it up and it immediately starts erupting
again, I'll have my answer.
All comments are welcome.
Scott Tilton
1963 TR4 Everyday . . . except today.
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