This is about the 1995 Accord.

Family member ran it low on oil, didn't notice they had a coolant leak until one day the temperature shot up to 75% then 100% before they pulled over. It may have overheated before I doubt they were checking.

The end result:
1. Recently I made sure the rad and reservoir were full. At overheat they were able to put in one gallon of water until it was full then limped home. I was able to put in half gallon of coolant after that. How low can the system go on coolant? Isn't the total capacity like 1.5 gallons? There was another time the rad cap broke and they lost a gallon and didn't know it until I checked and filled it. Can a system even RUN without one gallon? It never overheated though all that time, how is that?
2. The coolant was lost through a tear in a hose that goes to FITV or IACV (it goes to bottom of throttle). We replaced hose with overflow hose tubing from Autozone and clamps from Lowes.
3. The reservoir had brown gunk at bottom I had never seen before. It was heavy and sticky. Didn't smell like oil. The overflow has brown crap on the walls of it and we recently CLR'ed as much as we could. I'm hoping that stuff just melted off due to coolant after we CLR'ed it.
3. I checked oil there was nothing on dipstick. Added one quart, nothing on dipstick (maybe we didn't give it enough time?). Added another now it was half over min mark. They claim no oil pressure light came on and when we drove to the gas station I saw the temps never go above half. Did they fry the engine?

What I plan to do over the weekend is drain the coolant since they upset the mixture with water and put in fresh 50/50. I'm also going to make him take it for an oil change in the next two weeks. What kind of damage could we possibly be looking at? I'm wondering how the system could work with -1 gallon of coolant and -2 quarts of oil. It looks like the hose went first but now I'm wondering whether the oil went first (car is an oil burner) and this caused the car to overheat and destroy the hose. I just can't see how this could run without two quarts and how we didn't see anything over half on temp gauge until the overheat event.

I'm really mad that he let this happen. This is unbelievable.

 

For the coolant, the total capacity is a bit less than 2 gallons. You can run low on coolant, because hot coolant is dumped into the top of the radiator and is cooled as it works its way down to the bottom. As long as some coolant pools at the bottom, then no air would be drawn into the system. It starts to over heat when hot coolant is pooled at the bottom.

The oil is the same thing. As long as the pickup screen for the pump has oil, then the pressure will not drop below the set psi to turn on the oil pressure lamp.

Change the fluids and keep an eye on things. If there is no change in the car's performance or no strange smoke coming out of the exhaust or a new fluid loss, then the car should be ok. The owner needs to keep an eye on his fluids for a while, or they will likely need to buy a new engine or vehicle.

 

Your plan to replace these fluids is what I'd do and then continue to drive it.

If my car I'd also make a note, clearly placed in car, to check oil and radiator every two weeks.

 

Thanks for the information guys.

Yeah I drive the 09 and he drives the 95. I keep telling him to check on things but I know he ignores me. I hope he learned his lesson now.

The sad part is he wouldn't have checked the oil. We were finishing up replacing the hose when I asked him when he last checked his oil and he didn't tell me. So I pulled the dipstick myself and noticed.

That makes it the second time I caught something before it became a huge problem which is really annoying. I told him from now to check all fluids, belts and all previous problem areas before he starts driving two times a week because I don't know how fast the coolant or oil went and I want to know whether he really lost the coolant through the tear in the hose or if went somewhere else. It's not going to last forever but if he takes care of it and stops abusing it it will still ride.

 

Quick question. When bleeding air out of cooling system is it absolutely necessary to do it through the bleed bolt if there is one on the thermostat area? It's rusted so I'm pretty sure it's going to be hard to loosen. Normally I'd drain through rad, empty reservoir, open bleed bolt and fill up rad until it comes out of bleed bolt. Then close up bleed bolt and rev up to 2000rpm until cooling fans come on twice but if I don't open the bleed bolt that air that's trapped up there, how can I get it out?

 

I think that the bleed bolt helps to fill up the system and push trapped air out. If you use one of the spill-proof funnels that attaches to the radiator, then all of the air will eventually come out of the system.

 

Try PB Blaster. It has worked for me to loosen up rusted bolts.

 

You mentioned using "overflow hose" to replace the FITV hose. That hose isn't pressurized so it probably isn't reinforced to handle the pressure. The FITV hose has to take the pressure of the cooling system.

Another thing is if you can't get the bleed screw loose, you might have better luck with the car facing upwards on the steepest hill you can find. That way you might be able to work the air over to the radiator (& out). You can see whether it's successful by squeezing the radiator hoses after it cools down. You can hear & feel sloshing if there's air still remaining in there.