Enjoying a little drive for fuel and top up air in tyres, fine. On way home I smelt burnt oil fumes and guessed it was car in front of me. When that car turned off I realised to my horror it is my car that is burning oil! loads of blue smoke coming out the back, I stopped the car but it was so hot the engine ran with ignition off?? Switched off petrol and engine came to a halt. All the paint on the head of engine has burnt off! It seems the water in radiator was gone, lord knows where. When things had cooled down I checked engine oil and thank goodness some was showing on dipstick and it looks fairly clean with no white emulsion or nasty bits of metal showing in oil.
So it seems overheated badly due to lack of coolant. Am I likely to have damaged the engine do you think? It did'nt sieze upand seems to turn over OK.
Is it usual for a 7 to use loads of coolant over a 200 mile period.? I feel completely gutted that I have managed to do this to my new car of which I am so proud of.

I'm sure there are wiser people who will reply to this in due course. However, as a novice, every time before I drive my car I check the engine oil and water. In the Ruby there is a fairly fine line between enough water and too much. Too much is fine, however, as it just comes straight out the overflow pipe.

Was there no water at all in your radiator? I guess that once the level has got low enough to stop "thermosyphoning" then the remaining water in the head will boil off pretty quickly.

As to whether there is any damage to the engine, it sounds like you were pretty lucky, not sure what your pistons would have thought about it though! I often attribute sudden burning smells to the car in front - but then think "hang on, who's driving the sevety-year-old car here!?"

Hi David,

as per Urgent's comments above:

Check your oil and water every time you use your car (if doing longer distances a day then you should check it everytime you stop or fuel up, most probably around 100-120 miles on your car).

Fill you radiator back up with water, check you are full of oil and start the car up, if you have damaged the piston rings then you car will smoke. However you may find that you are lucky and all is well. Let us know how you get on.

Good luck!

Ruairidh

Thanks for words chaps, I have now drained off the remaining oil from the engine and it was clear of debris/emulsion. Refilled with fresh oil and filled up radiator. Engine started up OK with no oil or water spewing out of anywhere. Car seems to pull OK under acceleration but engine sounds a little knocking but not enough to get alarmed about. I think it may have put 10,000 miles on it wear wise.
I had completely overlooked checking the water, altho I do check oil each time car is used. I did a 100 mile + run out last weekend and had forgot about that milage (silly s*d). It seems my little engine lives to run another day and my lesson well and truly learnt.
I note that there is indeed a slight leak of water from base of rad', that is a drip every 20 seconds or so.

David, Have a close look at the bottom rad tank as the thin brass can wear away on the engine nosecone if the rad is sitting a bit lower than it should.

Check that the lower hose is not crushed under the dynamo. I had an overheating session caused by this recently. Nick

David

I think others have answered the question realy by suggesting more frequent water level checks1

This story might make you feel better......

Last year I went for a fairly long run, about 100 or more miles, pretty much flat out to watch a trial.
I knew my car used a lot of oil so should have checked it like I always do, but I forgot!! It also hadn't been checked before I set out that morning because I was in a rush.....Oh dear.....

At about 50 mph on the A30 I suddenly noticed out of the corner of my eye the oil gauge flicker and then drop down to zero!!! What happened next was trouser filling stuff... I turned off, declutched and turned onto the verge. Unfortunately in my panic I hadn't stopped to think that 50 mph was a little fast for the deep drainage ditch, high kerb and rough long grass verge!!! . A while later I had recovered sufficient to get out of the car and top up the empty sump. Trust me I wont be making that mistake again!!!

Steve

Trouser-filling indeed! But it's probably worse with a modern car. A friend of mine had a Volvo 480 with engine management troubles. It chose the perfect moment to shut the engine off - just coming on to a roundabout in a bit of a hurry. Virtually no brakes and impossibly heavy steering left him with no choice but to deliberately crash the car into "something" before he hit "someone"!

Quote 'Urgent Austin' "...Virtually no brakes and impossibly heavy steering left him with no choice but to deliberately crash the car into "something" before he hit "someone"!

Back in the late 50's early 60's I was told, learning to drive in an Austin 7 taught you to hit the cheapest thing when braking!!!! I had a Volvo 850 that had burnt it rings out by 130,000 miles, still clearing the oil off the drive and the A7 gets the blame for the oil from visitors - Fortunatly I haven't had a management system shut down in a Volvo, but that sounds nasty - But now I havn't got a Volvo anyway... just an old Nissan that has fuel problems, normally in a one way system at traffic lights.

Sandy

Reading of other friends roadside experiences has indeed made me feel a little better (still feel a right plonker tho)

> ... engine sounds a little knocking ...

It might have been doing that before, it's just that when you started it up again you might have been more sensitive to any noises which may have been caused by the overheating!

David

A glance at the oil pressure gauge as you exit a left hand bend or corner will give you an idea of the engine oil level. Before it gets dangerously low the oil pressure will momentarily dip as the oil surges away from the oil pump. With experience your speed, the sharpness of the corner and the length of prssure dip will give you an idea of the oil level. A bit like a remote oil level indicator. Dave