First thread so bare with me. Pictures are attached.

I just put a block heater in yesterday and ran into a problem with the coolant. I drained the radiator and the engine block, popped the frost plug out and installed the block heater. And when I went to add the coolant I put it in the white container next to it assuming the hose going to the radiator would suck it up. Keep in mind this is my first time.

Now to the problem, I then filled up the white container and ran for about 5 minutes with heaters on high. I was watching the container most of the time and saw it bubbling but it wasn't being sucked out. I saw the the temp gauge get to half (operating temp) and killed it. I then poured the rest of my coolant in the radiator, steam came out for a couple minutes. I went to go start it and it'd idle for a couple seconds and shut off. I let it cool for about 10 minutes and tried again. Had a rough start but it eventually sounded normal. Now I know now I read something wrong and I was supposed to run water through the radiator while I was doing it but what's done is done.

So my question, having run the engine for about 5 minutes without coolant actually circulating, did I do any damage? The gauge never went above halfway but it wasn't starting for awhile.

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You can't hurt the engine running no coolant, unless you let it get too hot. If you didn't let it get hot, then it's fine. It could have been bone dry on coolant, and running it for a couple minutes still wouldn't have hurt anything.

For future reference: when you have drained all your coolant, and need to refill you have a couple options. You can either flush the system by filling it with distilled water only and running it for a while, draining, and repeating. When I say run it for a while, let it get to operated temp, so the thermostat opens and everything is actually circulating.

Until you reach operating temp, the thermostat doesn't even open, and no coolant is even moving through the radiator. It's just sitting there.


Or if you don't want to flush, then you need to always FILL the radiator all the way full first. Burp the top hose a little and then fill the overflow about halfway. Run the engine like you normally would, even drive it a day. Then when it's fully cold sometime before you drive it again, take the radiator cap off and see if there is any room to top off. If there is, then your overflow is probably empty. So top of the radiator, and fill the overflow tank about 1/4 full. Done.

Thanks for the reply, so when you say fill the radiator you mean pour the coolant in directly in it? The confusion I had was people saying pour the coolant in the overflow to fill it but that obviously didn't work with a completely drained radiator.

Correct. You always need to pour your coolant directly into the radiator to fill it back up from being drained. Fill it all the way full. The radiator itself should always be full enough that when you take the radiator cap off, you see coolant right there at the top.

The overflow tank is just that: a place for coolant to go when the coolant expands from heat. That's why your overflow tank has two markings on it, HOT and COLD. The cold marking is always lower, because there needs to be room in the tank for the coolant when it's hot and is taking up more space. Once it cools down, the fluid in the tank goes back into the radiator via a siphoning movement. (which is why that little tube reaches all the way to the bottom of the overflow...so it's lower than the top of the radiator)

If you run without an overflow tank at all, then you would NOT see any coolant in the radiator when it's cold, because there would have to be room for it to expand when hot, or you'll blow the cap. Hence why we use overflow tanks.