I have a 1992 Civic sedan with a lot of coolant in the muffler. Let me put it this way: we messed up the head and coolant leaked into the exhaust pipe. Anymore detail than that and it’s a long story. We have a new head now, but there’s a lot of coolant in the muffler. My dad tried taking it off and tipping it on one end, but the fluid is stuck and only dribbles out when we slosh it around. How can we get this fluid out without damage to the muffler?
As long as the converter’s not full of fluid, I wouldn’t worry too much. I would think if you just run the engine, the fluid will heat up, vaporize, and come out the tailpipe as steam. Plus the pressure of the exhaust will force it out.
–BTW, I hate the new forum format. I posted the previous comment ONCE, got an error message, then ended up with two entries.
EW…me not liking the new format…looks generico. Anyway…dont worry about the coolant you Jugheads got into the muffler…it will evap on its own. HOWEVER…if you guys used any type of Head Gasket Fix in a Bottle such as my fav…Blue Devil…then Houston we have a problem. If you used Blue Devil that fluid will clog up your Cat and render your exhaust non functional…if you didnt use anything like that then dont worry about this issue at all.
oblivion, what kind of error message did you get? I’m keeping a general list of problems to pass on.
I’ve gotten no errors at all on the new format. It’s a bit like Facebook. Anyway, we have a temp sticker for the registration, so we could drive it around and blow it out. However, we need to get this car smogged soon and can’t have coolant blowing out. BTW, I remember hearing coolant doesn’t “evaporate”.
cdaquila: I use a small program called “Proxomitron” to block ads. It does not let some of the Java features of the site run. The errors aren’t particularly important. Since the site has no real ads, I just turn it off. But it is annoying, since most other sites will run fine with it. At least the ‘new and improved’ site will run properly on Firefox, unlike my local news station’s site, which really needs to be brought into this century.
oblivion: Consider switching to Adaware, which is a free Firefox plugin. It’s flexible enough that you’d be able to designate cartalk.com (which doesn’t have ads anyway) as a site to ignore.
A bit off topic…
Dont worry about evaporation of the coolant…your engine will heat that fluid up and the pressure will Blow it out…You have nothing to worry about bud. Go for a long ride and get it up to speed 65-70 for a while and then round town for an hour. It will take care of itself.
shadofax: I have Adaware. Proxomitron also blocks a lot of things that can compromise your privacy. Thanks.
We finally got the car to a driveable condition and took it for a 10 mile ride (on streets and freeway). We managed to blow coolant out, but not all of it.
Give it time…it’ll all blow out.