ok basically, like a week ago my car has been smelling of kinda like anti freeze for sometime. For a while i ran out of antifreeze but since its been cold i hadnt really been adding any. So a few days ago i refilled the tank and since then i think it has been smelling of so.

also to add to that, im not sure if it has anything to do with it but my engine just revs like when the car is standing. up and down up and down.


the first time this happened it was really cold and i just started my car and it went away in 5 mins. how ever this time i have been already driving for some time like 15-20 mins and my car started doing this.

does anyone know what could be wrong?

 

Well first off we need to know what kind of car you have I.E. Year/Model, Carb/Fuel injected if it's old and why was the car low on anti-freeze?

 

duh... lol sorry forgot


95 honda accord lx

well my old radiator had a hole so i put ina new one, and it kept the antifreeze for a while...but then at some point i noticed there wasnt any in the bucket.

it was winter any my temps were always good so i kinda slacked off on getting more for a month or so...and then i put it into the bucket.

 

did you check or have you ever checked the fluid level in the radiator to be safe? Also, can you hear/feel the engine surge with the tachometer or is it just the tach jumping? The fluid that you added, did you make sure that it was mixed, not straight Anti-freeze?

 

it was straight anti freeze.

i checked it in the raidator, and i added a bit but it seems pretty fine. i hear it may have air in it that is not allowing it to be at the full.

and yes i just sit and the car goes, voom, voom, voom, its not like that strong i dono like 1k rpms or something. at first i thought it was the pedal mechanism that froze, but as i said the car def heated up this time.

 

For starters I'd get an anti-freeze tester (they're like $2.00 at a parts store) to make sure that you have a proper mix, having to much anti-freeze in there is extremly corrosive, second, start the car up, open the radiator cap and make sure the radiator is full, then follow the upper radiator hose to the thermostat, on the thermostat housing you'll see a little "nipple" on top of a nut looking thing (10mm I believe) start the car up and open that up a little bit and leave it open until you get anti-freeze coming out of it to remove air from the system... that may resolve your issues and it's cheap/easy to try.... let us know how that works

 

are you sure u gota turn the car on when opening the radiator cap?

cuz arent you not supposed to do that or it will spray out?

 

The reason I said start it first (when it's cold) is to simply allow the car to start heating up and stuff while you're checking it, the car does HAVE to be running (with radiator cap on) when you bleed the system and have some pressure built up, but it won't spray out anti-freeze until the car has pressurized/started to warm up so if you want to check it before starting that's probably the safest way but it doesn't hurt either way......

But yeah, don't remove the cap when it's hot/warmed up..

 

Sorry to jack this thread; but you don't have to start the car when burping air out of the block. just open the 12mm bleed screw at the T-stat housing while pouring coolant into the radiator. When you get coolant from the bleed screw close it off, and fill the radiator completely.
Low coolant will cause the idle surge because the FITV and the IACV both use the coolant temperature to set the amount of air bypassing into the intake.
the BEST thing to do is find out where the coolant is leaking and fix the real problem.

The one eyed tech says "it's low on coolant"
The two eyed tech says "why is it low on coolant?"

 

have you checked your t-stat? and the idle air control valve (IACV), i had this same problem on my 90 (same engine from 90-97) and first the t-stat was stuck open, so the engine was unable to warm up, and second of all, the IACV was bad which caused it to rev unnecessarily until the car warmed up.

Its supposed to hold it at a fast idle until the car is warmed up to operating temp. if it is bad it will not hold rpms properly