is it bad to have too much coolant?
or does it even matter, as long as you don't have too little of coolant.......i know this!
or does it even matter, as long as you don't have too little of coolant.......i know this!
is there such a thing as too much coolant?
- Thread starter btcog82
- Start date
btcog82 said:
I wonder why they have fill lines on the overflow bottle then ?
btcog82 said:
Hi Brandon,
I assume you mean filling your expansion tank past the max line? Here is a link that does a decent job of explaining coolant tech in a down-to-earth way that may assist you.
http://www.musclecarclub.com/library/tech/cooling.shtml
Good write up, very informative.
John@Microsoft said:
If the "overflow bottle" (reservoir) is actually overfull, when coolant is released from the radiator to the reservoir, some coolant will be expelled into the engine compartment. Since coolant is not all water, this makes a mess of your engine compartment.
After running hot the reservoir will appear overfull until the engine fully cools. So check it when it is cold.
You should be a little suspicious of an overfull reservoir if you do not know why it has too much coolant. I have never seen it, but some radiator cap failures can block the return of water to the engine. Seen once... the coolant froze in the return tube after a hard run uphill in very cold, causing the engine to overheat running downhill from the pass. But hell that was an Alfa; anything can happen in an Alfa.
After running hot the reservoir will appear overfull until the engine fully cools. So check it when it is cold.
You should be a little suspicious of an overfull reservoir if you do not know why it has too much coolant. I have never seen it, but some radiator cap failures can block the return of water to the engine. Seen once... the coolant froze in the return tube after a hard run uphill in very cold, causing the engine to overheat running downhill from the pass. But hell that was an Alfa; anything can happen in an Alfa.
You must have quite a lot of air in the plastic expansion tank so the water can compress something (it compresses the air in the tank. Air compresses nicely).btcog82 said:
If you fill it up to the top, there won’t be enough air in there to get compressed. So the water will be pressed out of the tank. Messy and scary and everything…
The tank is not made of plastic so it can flex (won’t flex much anyway). It’s made of plastic because it’s cheap. So it's the air in there that gets compressed.
Peter
