So I have a 97 civic with a d16y8 vtech motor That I just bought not even 2 weeks ago, It dumped snow the last couple of days... well I drove the car just fine the day it snowed and the next day it started up just fine on the first crank, no problems running errands and I parked it for the night and it dumped hella more snow last night. Well I tried to start it and it cranked over for like 15 seconds started making a clunking sound and sounded like the belt was slippen it died I popped the hood to find the radiator didnt have coolant in it just water and was frozen solid so was the inlet & outlet hoses from the engine to radiator. I left it as is and got on Google for research... any opinions or advice please & thank you

 

Well, I guess a valuable lesson has been learned. Whenever you buy a "new to you" car, always check and change fluids immediately. Most other people tend to not take care of their cars, especially when they go to sell it.

So, by what your saying, my guess is the straight water in the motor probably froze, including the propeller for the water pump, which has a toothed gear driven by the timing belt. If the frozen water didnt crack the block, then id be looking for a stripped timing belt from the motor attempting to spin, but water pump pulley unable to move.

 

So is that worse case senario??? How would you recommend going about checking the cooling system and timing belt???

 

I mean.... if the engine continues to spin over, you could potentially be banging valves if the timing belt is broken. Worst case scenario is you end up replacing the engine from a cracked block or whatever.

Easiest way to see whats going on is take the valve cover off and rotate the engine.