the other day while heading home from my bro's house at 2:30am my lower rad hose split causing all the coolent to drain from the rad and engine.Now i think i might have damaged my engine i dont know yet because i have to replace the lower rad hose and i will change the oil then i will see if it starts.The thing here is i drove at least a mile without coolent the first thing i should have noticed was my heater started blowing cold air i found this odd so i looked at the temp it was high but it wasn't in the red it was like driving in a traffic jam in the middle of summer you now your temp gets high but not in the red.Anyway i kept a eye on my gauges my oil pressure was good but the temp remained high then i noticed the smell of hot engine and i started to here a noise sort of like when you start off in a higher gear than you should sort of like rocks in a coffee can now that i think about it it was probley the cylenders pre igniteing do to the heat, it mainly happend when i put my foot down on the gas peddle.then i noticed my temp gauge totaly stop working thats when i pulled to the side of the road the truck stalled and that was it i kept it off.There was no mechanical failer in the engine that i know off like somthing sereously breaking but when i opened the hood you could see the smoke from the grime on the block burning no flames or anything.I'am hopeing not much damage was done it was cold out that night like -10 with the wind chill factor it was more like -18 so i assume that's why my temp gauge didn't show it was really hot at the time but all so there was no water so it was takeing the air temp in the engine but it did finnally fail.Now what do you guys out there think has this ever happened to anyone out there and did your vehicle suffer a lot of damage or did it start rite back up...?My truck is a 85 bronco-II 2.8 liter engine

 

Welcome to FTE!!

It hard to say what may have happened until you check things out. I would check the oil for coolant, pressure test the cooling system and run a compression test, this could indicate a blown gasket or cracked head. Also check for metal in the oil, if you find metal you could have ring/bearing problems.

Anyone else?

 

Temp. gauge won't read hot, they read water temp, not air temp.

 

oh jeez thanx i wasn't aware that a water temp gauge that's implanted in hot water from my rad read the water temp i thought they read the air temp...lmao