I am always deeply suspicious of any bottles of magic liquid to pour into your
engine/gearbox/wherever that claim to do wonders. I therefore feel that it is
only fair and just that when one such bottle did exactly what it claimed to, I
should publicly declare its success.
I will admit now I did not use this on Daffy, but Cyril (my wifes 12-year-old
Citroen BX), but I do not apologise for mentioning it here as its application
is universal. Cyril was losing a lot of coolant (top-up almost every day),
with no obvious external leak, so an internal crack in the block or (more
likely, being aluminium) head was suspected. Given that the engine was
otherwise scap, I had nothing to lose, so I tried a bottle of "Block crack
repairer" from Halfords (major UK car parts and accessories chain). All I had
to do was removed the thermostat (and put the housing back on without it),
drain the coolant, top up with pure water, and add this thick, reddish gloop
to the radiator. Drive around for three days, drain the coolant + gloop,
replace the thermostat, and fill up with normal water/anti-freeze mixture.
Ignoring a few side-issues related to Citroens that are neither interesting or
relevant to Spitfires, I did exactly as instructed, and the gloop did exactly
what it said it would. The car has now run for a fortnight (with a lot of use
over the Christmas holidays) without needing topping-up once. I have not
checked levels recently, but since it did need topping up daily, this is a big
imrovement at the very least, and may well be a complete cure. The engine
runs fine, there is no evidence of overheating (no gauge, only a warning light
on this car), my wife is happy.
By bizarre co-incidence, my mothers BX (different engine) had developed a large
external block crack. My father planned to give her a new car for Christmas
anyway, but wanted to make her car limp as far as Christmas day, so I told him
about this. He had already used a sort of epoxy putty stuff to plug up the
crack, and the red gloop seemd to finish fixing the problem.
Obviously it has only been a fortnight, so long-term effects cannot be judged.
However, since a cracked block or head is otherwise junk, you have nothing to
lose, so on that basis, I can recommend that red gloop in a bottle DOES work
to fix cracked blocks and heads - and it only costs 5 quid ($8).
My personal inclination would still be to stay away from the similar
radiator-repairing stuff you can buy, if I cared deeply about the engine.
Anything that can fill a crack could also constrict a coolant passage, and why
risk a good engine for the sake of the radiator? However, if the engine has
had it anyway, where is the risk?
Richard & Daffy
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