FocusCanada Forums

Well, my little excitement for the day...this is a new one...to me anyways....

Was picking up a friend yesterday after she dropped her Focus at the garage for a new tranny (seems the diff blew...find out more tomorrow), and on the way back to work, I drove through a lot of slush (about 8in deep) in one patch of road (turns out the water main burst). I didn't think much of it...made the belts squeal for a few seconds, but nothing unusual.

Anyway, after work yesterday, went to start...and OMG!...I thought something had busted for sure. There was an awful knocking at idle....bad vibration sorta thing. Popped the hood, couldn't see anything, so then I took a quick look under the car...and lo and behold...sheeted in ice all the way along, with giant icicles hanging down. So, I figured it had to be ice doing something...drove 7K home, felt the vibration seemed to be just under the seats area....car drove normally, no problems.

Then this morning, same horrible noise on start, and then vibration etc at idle....so, I thought I'd test my ice theory to make sure....at 1pm, drove to our storage depot (heated), and parked inside, and left it there all afternoon till 5.30......went back...all fixed up, no horrible noises...just one hell of a puddle on the floor!!...lol

I'm soooo glad it was nothing worse! I was imagining all sorts of broken things under there...engine mounts, exhaust mounts...etc etc....but all good now :D

S.

lol Well dont forget to run some gasline anti-freeze through it now that the car has gone swimming.

Actually, good point :D...can I get that anywhere..Crappy Tire maybe?

Partsource actually has it on sale this week ;) lol but yes pick it up basicly anywhere.

I would say sence you went through so much water pick up either a 6 pack of the black bottle stuff or get the red bottle.

The red one is ment to eat up more water faster.... Called ISO heat. Though more expensive the red bottled one will work faster.

Sons, being more than a few years your senior, let me impart some money savings to you.

Trade secret. Gasline antifreeze is something they call Methyl Hydrate. It's a paint thinner.

You can get it at any hardware store, crappy tire, etc. for about a buck or two a litre. Enough to last you the whole winter.

If it makes you feel a bit better, you can fill up the little bottles, and laugh at the general public paying full price....

OAC_Sparky,Feb 6 2007, 08:44 PM Wrote:Sons, being more than a few years your senior, let me impart some money savings to you.

Trade secret. Gasline antifreeze is something they call Methyl Hydrate. It's a paint thinner.

You can get it at any hardware store, crappy tire, etc. for about a buck or two a litre. Enough to last you the whole winter.

If it makes you feel a bit better, you can fill up the little bottles, and laugh at the general public paying full price....
[right][snapback]225989[/snapback][/right]

Yup thats a route to take to.
And yes I know its just methyl hydrate. :)

one year, i spent a good amount of time playing in some parking lots. packed alot of snow into the front end. figured it would melt off. drove around the next day in the slush and melted snow, car ran fine. got out of work that night, started the car no problems, went to start driving and jsut crazy grinding, smashing crashing. i thought i busted a drive shaft, thats how hard it was hitting. limped it home less then 2km, put it in my garage and looked underneath. sure enough everything was frozen solid. let it sit hopefully thinking it would melt. nope. to it to a spray and wash the next mornign and melted the s*** myself. worked perfectly :)

Actually I got nailed by that ice build up issue while in Wiarton. They had so much snow up there the car was buried at least once a day and when I was taking the car out, some of the snow melted & froze again when I parked.

Good thing I remembered that or I would have had a heart attack once I got up to highway speeds and the steering wheel started to mambo like that...

NefCanuck

Yup, had the same thing a couple of years back.

Did I ever feel like a moron when I was told that the "fix" was to hose all the ice off the car with hot water :angry:

OAC_Sparky,Feb 6 2007, 08:44 PM Wrote:Sons, being more than a few years your senior, let me impart some money savings to you.

Trade secret. Gasline antifreeze is something they call Methyl Hydrate. It's a paint thinner.

You can get it at any hardware store, crappy tire, etc. for about a buck or two a litre. Enough to last you the whole winter.

If it makes you feel a bit better, you can fill up the little bottles, and laugh at the general public paying full price....
[right][snapback]225989[/snapback][/right]

good to know!

OAC_Sparky,Feb 6 2007, 07:44 PM Wrote:Sons, being more than a few years your senior, let me impart some money savings to you.

Trade secret. Gasline antifreeze is something they call Methyl Hydrate. It's a paint thinner.

You can get it at any hardware store, crappy tire, etc. for about a buck or two a litre. Enough to last you the whole winter.

If it makes you feel a bit better, you can fill up the little bottles, and laugh at the general public paying full price....
[right][snapback]225989[/snapback][/right]

And it is also good for e-test, throw a shot of this in with a full tank of hi-test and it burns hot and clean ;)