History Alcohol instead of antifreeze?

A cousin of mine just sent me this article about my uncle, who's car burned up a long time ago. This likely happened sometime in the 1940's as he passed away in 1949 at the age of 22.

Was this a common practice, maybe homebrew alcohol was used as coolant during the war?

 

Interesting article on antifreeze.
http://www.crankshift.com/history-of-antifreeze/
Alcohol was probably still being used by some

 

They did not have a choice back then, alcohol, or drain it. Many stories of bringing the battery inside, and draining the oil every night to make it start in the morning. No smart phone for a weather forecast
survival took effort

 

My Dad used to talk about alcohol as anti freeze, probably in the 30’s, early 40’s. And about grandpa having a connection with the moonshiners in eastern wa suppling Seattle. I’d be surprised if grandpa didn’t drain the car, and drink the shine.

 

Pawpaw said he’d jack up the rear of model T in the barn. That helped from getting run over hand cranking it.
during the winter, he’d drain the water, pull the coils and set them on the mantel to stay warm
Grandma would put some water on the stove in the morning
Install the warm coils and add the warm water in the morning, then hand crank it

fun times

 

Anthony, as a model T owner, they jacked up the rear end so the cold oil and bands in the tranny would not drag and make it start easier. Carry on.

 

There was temporary { alcohol} and permanent antifreeze.

 

Well I be
Thanks. He loved those old Ts.

except when they stalled in the middle of a river

 

For a long time alcohol based antifreeze was all they had. It was customary to change to a 160 thermostat in the fall, and put in the antifreeze, drain it out in the spring and put in the 180 thermostat. Prestone was available after WW2 but it was expensive, they still sold alcohol antifreeze in the sixties.

 

I've got a couple Rex-A-Co temp gauges that have a mark that says "alcohol boils" at about 170ish IIRC

 

Got an old book from the 40s, the section on coolant lists alcohol (ethanol), glycerin and two variations of glycol. They seem to mean that alcohol is the best, as it does not cause severe issues if some gets into the oil. Ethylene glycol and glycerin supposedly causes black deposits on bearings etc, eventually causing them to sieze.

 

That's a new one on me but I have heard of people using denatured alcohol as a additive in the gas tank. HRP

 

All alcohol is temporary.

 

When I was in the army ,1957-1959, money was tight. I used alcohol anti-freeze. I learned that from my uncle Joe who was extremely thrifty, ( cheap ), but when he bought his house, he paid cash for it. Maybe he wasn't so cheap after all.

 

Alcohol is still used as an antifreeze in air brake systems, in fact we ran a dragster on it as it was the cheapest source of methanol at the time.

BTW glycol antifreeze also flamable in neat form.

 

Probably 20 years ago I bought a 4 wheel drive Dodge Grand Caravan for my wife and the people selling it lived at a church camp up in the mountains about 60 miles from me and when I went up to buy it he had the battery for it and his other car in the house to keep them warm to help the cars start better. It was below zero up there and when my son drove me up the next night in his truck I found out that his heater wasn't working or we would have taken my truck up there. As someone said earlier people do what they have to do under certain conditions.
I have had old timers telling about running alcohol in their cooling systems in the winter back in the 20's or 30's and when I was little in the early 50's That was listening to some of my dad's friends and my grandfather telling what they did back when.

Up into the 70's it was standard procedure to drain the antifreeze in vehicles and install new antifreeze every fall and I remember doing a lot of them in high school autoshop between 1962 and 1965. People would come have us change it rather than taking it to a gas station and most brought their own antifreeze. I remember that we saved the antifreeze out of one of the well maintained cars we changed it in and put it in my buddy's car that didn't have antifreeze in it. It tested to something like 30 below zero and was as clean and clear as the new stuff we put in the car.

 

Indeed, as far as I know all alcohols (glycol is an alcohol) burn. But glycol is far harder to get to catch fire than methanol and ethanol for example.
I remember a chemistry lesson where we tested just that. Different groups got a different alcohol to try to set on fire. Some burned very easy, some were hard, and one basically needed a wick to burn.

 

Yea, but this kind makes you blind if you use it wrong.

 

Had a chemistry teacher in high school from Minnesota that said his farmer dad used kerosene in the winter for antifreeze.

 

My dad talked about using alcohol in his cars in Minneapolis in the winter. This was before Prestone antifreeze was popular. Probably in the 1920's to the late 40's. Otherwise he drained the water after he was done using the car that day. He talked about a 36 Olds he had. He came home late one night and was going to use the car early the next morning. Left the water in and the next morning the block was cracked.

 

The Owner’s Manual for my 1950 3100 Chevrolet talks about using Alcohol for antifreeze. I don’t remember what it said, because the last time I looked through it was about 30 years ago. I just remember thinking WTF? I asked my Dad about it and he told me the same thing that everyone has posted here. He went on to mention that Grandpa would keep his antifreeze when it was drained out by the service station in the spring and have it reinstalled in the fall. This was in Eastern Iowa.

 

Like those bottles of "gas line antifreeze" they used to sell. Used that a lot when I live in WV in the 70s.

 

Haha! I used to buy that stuff in the 80s as a teenager. Lots of folks used it to add to the fuel. Carbs were still the mainstay back then.
I seem to remember seeing alcohol being suggested as a substitute for antifreeze in some military handbooks/standards for engine cooling drawbar tests.

 

When I was working in an auto parts store in the early 1980s, there were still some old farts who would specify that they wanted "permanent antifreeze "; in other words, ethylene glycol, the only type we sold at that point regardless. When people did use alcohol, it would evaporate over time, so you had to test it periodically over the course of the winter and add more as became necessary.

 

My Dad would have been 91 this May. He told me about using alcohol as antifreeze when he was growing up. Doing fall field work with Grandpa’s 1949 John Deere D, it would get hot enough to boil off the alcohol, so one would have to remember to top it off at night so the remaining water wouldn’t freeze.

 

When using alcohol, it was common practice to test it, then write the results and the date somewhere under the hood. In the ‘80s and ‘90s some old timers where still doing that, just out of habit from seeing their dads do it.

 

This all brings back memories! As a kid in the 60's we had a go kart we ran an old cast iron Briggs & Stratton horse and a half with governor removed and head shaved on gas drier alcohol!
Then in the 70's being broke and needing my '50 Ford to not freeze and break I used diesel for antifreeze because it was way cheaper than antifreeze and I had some diesel and no money. Worked fine and no rust either! Glad those days are gone and the ex as well.

Dave

 

I remember my father telling me about when he was a boy and they were living in Idaho. To get their Model T started on cold winter days sometimes they would build a small fire under the oil pan to warm the engine oil so it would be easier to crank over. They also jacked one rear wheel off the ground so it would spin freely which also helped make it easier to crank.

 

Your idea of coolant is not new. Rumely Oil Pull tractors used oil as coolant. It allowed the engine to run at a higher temperature, which helped with the combustion of kerosene.

 

As stated, ethanol or methanol, were used as antifreeze before widespread use of ethylene glycol based antifreeze coolant. Ethylene glycol is also in the alcohol chemical family as several posts have pointed out, but the main benefit is they also raise boiling point as compared to water or even lower boiling point of ethanol/methanol. So ethylene glycol helps both low temp and high temp.