Oops ...

[Rhythm Thief]

... I've broken my girlfriend's car. By not checking the antifreeze.
It wouldn't start on Tuesday morning, so we bought a battery, which I fitted. Still nothing, so I took the distributor cap off and was horrified by the state of it, so I changed that, and the HT leads and plugs, and checked the spark. Still nothing, so I checked the fuel supply and tried starting it by pouring fuel directly into the throttle body. I took the rocker cover off and checked the valves and camshaft. Finally I checked the compression (as I was running out of ideas at this point) and discovered it was about 20 psi on cylinders 2 and 3. Oh dear. I assume it's frozen as it failed very suddenly , and the fact that it's two cylinders next to each other indicates to me that the block has cracked. So ... (irrelevant to bicycles, I know) ... CHECK YOUR ANTIFREEZE!

 

[Crackle]

What are you.....


Sure it's cracked. Do modern cars have expansion plugs in the block?

 

[fossyant]

How old is the car - mine is 7 still on the Nissan long life stuff !! The wife's was changed with Toyota stuff about 5 years ago......

 

[snakehips]

Cars , temperamental creatures , give 'em up.

 

[colly]

I had a car that I managed to let freeze solid due to lack of anti-freeze, so what Crackle said, check to see if it has any ice plugs.
On the car I had they simply popped out on the end of thick slugs of ice. The engine would turn over slowly but it was never going to run as such.
When it the weather warmed up I somehow pressed in some new plugs myself and bingo.

Leaked like a sieve for the rest of the time I had it mind you but it did run well enough.

 

[4F]

I had that once on an old behford ha van but luckily it had expension plugs so did no long term damage once it thawed out

 

[foggy]

try pouring boiling water over the block afew times then
wait about 30 minuets

 

[Rhythm Thief]

try pouring boiling water over the block afew times then
wait about 30 minuets

it's thawed now, but the compression is still down. Whether it's frozen or not is irrelevant really, as on a fifteen year old Renault Clio an engine rebuild (which will probably be needed to fix the compression issues) is never going to be worth the bother. We bought another one off ebay tonight, I'll get the good bits stripped off the other one tomorrow then phone the scrapman.

 

[yenrod]

... I've broken my girlfriend's car. By not checking the antifreeze.
It wouldn't start on Tuesday morning, so we bought a battery, which I fitted. Still nothing, so I took the distributor cap off and was horrified by the state of it, so I changed that, and the HT leads and plugs, and checked the spark. Still nothing, so I checked the fuel supply and tried starting it by pouring fuel directly into the throttle body. I took the rocker cover off and checked the valves and camshaft. Finally I checked the compression (as I was running out of ideas at this point) and discovered it was about 20 psi on cylinders 2 and 3. Oh dear. I assume it's frozen as it failed very suddenly , and the fact that it's two cylinders next to each other indicates to me that the block has cracked. So ... (irrelevant to bicycles, I know) ... CHECK YOUR ANTIFREEZE!

I know enough about cars to know that its ****ed.

Anyway of deviating the blame to the ether ??

 

[yenrod]

All the best and hope it dont set you back tooooo ! much - engine re-builds and cylinders REALLY cost.

I know my sisters motor once had a cyclinder prob.

Set her back about 4 ton.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

All the best and hope it dont set you back tooooo ! much - engine re-builds and cylinders REALLY cost.

I know my sisters motor once had a cyclinder prob.

Set her back about 4 ton.

Cheers, but I shan't be rebuilding the engine. I haven't got the time or the space to do it myself, and it'd cost far more than the car's worth to get it done. I'll strip anything useful off it tomorrow and scrap it.

 

[Abitrary]

Cheers, but I shan't be rebuilding the engine. I haven't got the time or the space to do it myself, and it'd cost far more than the car's worth to get it done. I'll strip anything useful off it tomorrow and scrap it.

But surely anything useful left on it will increase the scrap value? What are we talking about here BTW... doors, turtle wax turtles?

 

[Rhythm Thief]

I just want someone to come and tow it away, I won't be getting any money for it. At least, I wouldn't have thought so.

 

[Abitrary]

Why don't you put it on ebay for scrap? You could get a couple of quid for the catalytic converter alone, because girls buy those so they can make nick-nacks out of the platinum.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Do you know ... perhaps I will.