[MR2] Cold weather, cooling fan light, and coolant loss

[Donald Chalfant]

Does the person who did the coolant change know how to bleed the system?  How did they find it a quart low?  How far did you drive the car to get the oil change?  
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: felix at crowfix.com 
  To: mr2 at mr2.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2011 3:25 PM
  Subject: [MR2] Cold weather, cooling fan light, and coolant loss


  Took my 86 MkI in for an oil change, and it had lost about a quart of
  coolant (it had been flushed and filled in the fall).  A couple of
  miles after driving away, the red cooling fan light came on.  No other
  changes -- temp was slightly on the cool side as it has been for 25
  years, voltage same as it usually is, and hot air came out of the
  defroster and heat vents.  Stayed like that til I got home ten miles
  later.

  My experience has been that the red cooling fan light is one of
  several that come on when the alternator is feeling tired.  But I
  don't remember it ever coming on by itself.

  The only unusual thing I can think of is that I hadn't driven it for
  about two weeks, and it has been sitting outside in freezing weather
  -- the overnight low has been anywhere from 20F to 28F, and only a
  couple of days have had highs over freezing.  Very little snow, an
  inch or two a couple of times, six inches once.  I had to yank a bit
  to get the door open, the engine started up after a couple of seconds,
  and I let it warm up while I scraped all the windows.  There was ice
  on the inside of the windshield and moon roof.  It started melting
  when I was about 5 miles from home, halfway to the garage, dripping on
  my head, but there were no other wonky lights.  Maybe water got inside
  the dash somehow and picked on the coolant light?

  Assuming the fall coolant change wasn't just water, is there any
  likely link between this freezing weather, the missing quart of
  coolant, and the red light?

  -- 
              ... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
       Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix at crowfix.com
    GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E  6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
  I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

  _______________________________________________
  MR2 Mailing List
  MR2 at mr2.com
  http://mr2.com/mailman/listinfo/mr2_mr2.com