What happens if you overfill your coolant
Coolant is a fluid that is added to your engine that helps prevent it from overheating. If your engine gets too far above its normal operating temperature, some serious damage can be caused and in the worst case scenario, cause an engine to seize and require that it be replaced.
COOLANT
What does it really do?
The coolant tank, also known as the coolant overflow bottle, is designed to hold coolant when the fluid heats up. When this happens, the coolant expands and if it had nowhere to go, it could cause damage to hoses and the engine. The coolant bottle provides a place into which coolant can expand without causing damage. Coolant tanks have two marks on them indicating a minimum and maximum level. The minimum mark is the lowest amount of coolant your engine will need and going below this may cause overheating problems.
The coolant tank, also known as the coolant overflow bottle, is designed to hold coolant when the fluid heats up. When this happens, the coolant expands and if it had nowhere to go, it could cause damage to hoses and the engine. The coolant bottle provides a place into which coolant can expand without causing damage. Coolant tanks have two marks on them indicating a minimum and maximum level. The minimum mark is the lowest amount of coolant your engine will need and going below this may cause overheating problems.
On the other hand, overfilling your coolant tank above the maximum level when it’s cold will mean that there’s nowhere for the coolant to expand into once it heats up. If this is the case, any excess will need to be removed from the system and this can happen via an overflow hose, or a hose may become damaged and burst.
This is where the real dangers of overfilling your coolant lie. Hot coolant leaking throughout your engine bay can cause serious damage to wiring and electrical components.
If you do end up with a burst hose, your engine could be starved of coolant and cause some pretty big problems. A less serious side effect is the puddle of coloured liquid that will be pooling beneath your car, which in most cases is just an inconvenience.
How do you remove hot coolant from the coolant reservoir?
Draining the coolant from the reservoir is a necessary maintenance task due to several reasons. I’ll describe how exactly you can get all that nasty green antifreeze out of the reservoir.
1. Place a bucket under the drain plug at the bottom of the reservoir.
2. Lift the brake pedal all of the ways up. With your other hand, pump the clutch five times. This will force air bubbles out of fluid lines and the pump.
3. Unscrew plug counter-clockwise until it starts to get tight and then loosen 1/4 turn more. The coolant level will begin to drop.
