Thread: Zips riser

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Thanks Roger, That is worth a check! Ethylene Glycol boils at about 225 F at 1 atm for a 50/50 wt. % mixture. My cap is not a pressure cap, I chose it for a second temp reading right at the radiator so it is just a simple cap with a thermometer in it. The first thing I can try is to use a real pressure cap and then try a pressure measurement on the cylinders. If the problem can be solved just by changing the cap that would be great. On the advice of my short block builder I torqued the head bolts 5 ft. lb. over the GMC specs so I am hoping I sealed the head gaskets pretty good, but of course a gasket problem is possible. If a head gasket is blown I might have water in a cylinder? I recall that one of the common maladies of the Ford flathead was a block crack that would allow water loss without water in a cylinder so I guess that is possible here. I will try a pressure cap first! Ironically I teach the Clausius-Clapeyron equation treatment of boiling point elevation over and over in my summer P. Chem. course but then I use pure compounds so now I have a new applied problem for a mixture. As is often the case in these equations it might be easier to just measure the boiling point elevation with pressure than to try to calculate it for a mixture so I have checked suitable tables.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/Teen Rodder