Not really appropriate for this forum but thought I would post because I respect the opinion of the mature audience here. It seems my daughter was bored after Kindergarten today. She decided to make a sand castle on the air cleaner of my fresh and never fired 302 in my 53 today. There wasn't any sand handy so she used Aluminum oxide abrasive from my cabinet sand blaster. The engine is basically sealed but there are open coolant passages and there is definitely some abrasive in there. Other than high risk of water pump failure, will it hurt anything. I only need to install accessories and wire it before I fire it. I really don't want to pull it and disassemble unless it's really necessary.

Dewayne

 

Well, if she had put it down the intake manifold, I might be worried, but just in some water passageways you say? I'd probably blow it out with air if they are dry, if not, try and wash it out with fairly high pressure water, other than that I don't know what could get hurt, except the water pump like you said.

 

I honestly wouldn't even worry about your water pump unless she dumped a ton of it in there. I think what I would do is push it out in the driveway and flush it really good with a garden hose before you hook up the radiator hoses and then forget about it. Do you have any idea how much crud is floating around in an older cooling system? I wouldn't think a little residual aluminum oxide would hurt a thing.

 

Probably only a tablespoon or less actually made it inside the engine cooling passages. I guess I need to carefully vacuum off the air cleaner, intake etc and hose her out. I hadn't thought about how much residue is in a typical older cooling system with no noticable effect.

Dewayne