Kilroy Posted November 1, 2006 Share Posted November 1, 2006 I am taking my '90 Legacy AWD into AAMCO today to finally have something done about my transmission, so I went out yesterday afternoon to start the car. It has been sitting for about 3 months now and it got below the freezing mark about a week ago and it had 6 inches of snow on it. It fired up right away with no troubles, going into high idle. After about 2 minutes, it settled down into regular idle. Great, or so I thought. I let it run for awhile to get it warm inside and let it melt the snow/ice off the exterior, but after about 20 minutes I noticed that nothing was melting. I went out and checked the air coming out of the vents and it was cold. I brought the car into the garage and took a look around the engine, then noticed that the liquid in the rad overflow tank was frozen. It turns out that there is nothing but straight water in the radiator, not a drop of coolant. I brought the car into the garage for a few hours (attached to the house, not heated but well above freezing level) then went out and started it for a few minutes again and got some hot air blowing out of the vents. I left the car in the garage overnight and checked on it this morning. There was still ice in the overflow. Drained water from radiator via the cap on the bottom (it was clean and clear) and took out the overflow and put it in the sink in hot water to get the ice out. Topped up the radiator and the overflow to the fill line with straight antifreeze, about 3/4 of a gallon. I'm hoping this will be enough to get the coolant in the correct range (good to ~ -30C) for the winter. I started the car again about an hour ago and after idling for about 10 minutes I am still not getting heat. The fans in the front came on after about 2 minutes (thought that was awfully strange) and I could touch the intake on the engine and barely felt any heat at all, even after 10 minutes of idling. I took the car out for a short drive and immediately noticed that the temperature guage on the dash was almost maxxed out, it was barely below the red line. I turned on the heat and immediately had plenty. As soon as I pulled the car into the garage again with it idling, no heat and the rad fans were going like crazy. I touched the intake again and it was still barely warm, it's only -6C (~30F) outside now. The large hose at the top of the radiator was very hot and hard, I couldn't squeeze it to see if water was flowing. At this point I am thinking that there may either be water frozen within the engine still or the thermostat is fubared. Any ideas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cougar Posted November 1, 2006 Share Posted November 1, 2006 The engine heat is way too high to have any ice left in the engine. The thermostat is the trouble in my opinion. I would get a genuine Subaru replacement for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kimokalihi Posted November 1, 2006 Share Posted November 1, 2006 Are you sure you got all the air out of the system? That happened to me the other day when I took my heater core out and put it back in. Turned out after a day of sitting and a couple times of running it with the radiator cap off and burping the system, all the air came out and that solved the high temp reading with no heat from the heater. If you could seperate that block into a few paragraphs, it would make it much easier to read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilroy Posted November 2, 2006 Author Share Posted November 2, 2006 The situation seemed to resolve itself. About 10 minutes after I posted I went back out to the car and checked the engine. The intakes were now quite hot and I let it sit for another 20 minutes until I had to leave. I had heat right away and the temp guage centered itself nicely. I believe there may have been some ice left in the system that melted after letting it sit for awhile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porcupine73 Posted November 2, 2006 Share Posted November 2, 2006 It might have taken it a bit to melt the water frozen rock solid in the upper radiator hose so it could start circulating again. There hot water would have just been touching the wall of ice but not running over it so it could have taken time to melt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnceggleston Posted November 2, 2006 Share Posted November 2, 2006 look for leaks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virrdog Posted November 2, 2006 Share Posted November 2, 2006 Yeah, if stuff froze... don't you have to check your ice plugs to see if they popped? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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