"BigWallop" wrote in message
. uk...

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
.. .
r.p.mcmurphy wrote:

i heard that
antifreeze tastes sweet...so is it ok just to dip a finger in the rad
and
drop a drip on my tongue?

sigh

Ethylene glycol the main component of antifreeze tastes sweet. Sadly
it's converted in your liver to oxalic acid which is poisonous. OTOH
Darwin should be pleased at your attempts to remove yourself from the
gene pool.

Did you know that the urine of diabetics tastes sweet as well, because
of the sugar in it. Perhaps you should volunteer your services to the
local hospital?


ROFLMFAO !!!!!!!!!!!!

I heard that stuff makes you go blind almost immediately, as opposed to
doing it the slow male way, is this true?


Methyl alcohol makes you go blind. I don't think ethylene glycol can be
terribly poisonous since the Italians were adulterating wine with it at one
time.

Andy.

due to cold temps tonight, and the fact that my poor old cars are stuck in
the drive... i need a quick check for sufficient antifreeze. i heard that
antifreeze tastes sweet...so is it ok just to dip a finger in the rad and
drop a drip on my tongue? i know its not gonna tell me if there's enough
but it will tell me that the previous owners had put some in.

Steve

Ooops...should have been posted to uk.rec.cars.maintenance! done now! im
sure someone will respond though!


steve

"r.p.mcmurphy" wrote in message
...
due to cold temps tonight, and the fact that my poor old cars are stuck in
the drive... i need a quick check for sufficient antifreeze. i heard that
antifreeze tastes sweet

So does cyanide I believe.

"r.p.mcmurphy" wrote in message
...
due to cold temps tonight, and the fact that my poor old cars are stuck in
the drive... i need a quick check for sufficient antifreeze. i heard that
antifreeze tastes sweet...so is it ok just to dip a finger in the rad and
drop a drip on my tongue? i know its not gonna tell me if there's enough
but it will tell me that the previous owners had put some in.

Steve


If your not sure then drain it and refill with fresh mix of 50/50
coolant/antifreeze and water. Don`t forget its the anti corrosive properties
that you need as much as the anti freezing. Easy peasy and won`t cost the
earth.

Mike wrote:

So does cyanide I believe.

No, cyanide isn't sweet. Almondy, but not sweet.

And if you're suggesting that the OP would be poisoned by dipping his
finger in his engine coolant and tasting it, you are very wrong. It
wouldn't harm him at all.

--
Grunff

Steve Firth wrote:

Ethylene glycol the main component of antifreeze tastes sweet. Sadly
it's converted in your liver to oxalic acid which is poisonous. OTOH
Darwin should be pleased at your attempts to remove yourself from the
gene pool.

Come on. It has an LD50 of several grams/kg. So even if his coolant was
100% ethylene glycol, and he weighed a puny 60kg, he'd need to drink 120
grams to even approach the LD50. Dip/taste might transfer 50-100mg to
his mouth. Not at all dangerous.


--
Grunff

"Grunff" wrote in message
...
Mike wrote:

So does cyanide I believe.

No, cyanide isn't sweet. Almondy, but not sweet.

And if you're suggesting that the OP would be poisoned by dipping his
finger in his engine coolant and tasting it, you are very wrong. It
wouldn't harm him at all.


Well I wouldn't go that far, but he shouldn't drop dead (in the dilutions
*normally* found in road going engines) !

Trouble is, you don't know what else might have been added or become
deposited into the coolant.

"John Woodhall" wrote in message
...

snip

If your not sure then drain it and refill with fresh mix of 50/50
coolant/antifreeze and water. Don`t forget its the anti corrosive
properties
that you need as much as the anti freezing. Easy peasy and won`t cost the
earth.


With out knowing what car / engine you can't say that, some are real
*******s these days, and you need to know what you're doing if you're not
going to be left with air locks and local over heating of the engine...

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
.. .
r.p.mcmurphy wrote:

i heard that
antifreeze tastes sweet...so is it ok just to dip a finger in the rad
and
drop a drip on my tongue?

sigh

Ethylene glycol the main component of antifreeze tastes sweet. Sadly
it's converted in your liver to oxalic acid which is poisonous. OTOH
Darwin should be pleased at your attempts to remove yourself from the
gene pool.

Did you know that the urine of diabetics tastes sweet as well, because
of the sugar in it. Perhaps you should volunteer your services to the
local hospital?


ROFLMFAO !!!!!!!!!!!!

I heard that stuff makes you go blind almost immediately, as opposed to
doing it the slow male way, is this true?

:::Jerry:::: wrote:

Well I wouldn't go that far, but he shouldn't drop dead (in the dilutions
*normally* found in road going engines) !

Trouble is, you don't know what else might have been added or become
deposited into the coolant.

Chemists have been tasting stuff for hundreds of years, and until a few
decades ago it was perfectly normal lab practice. As long as you're
careful about how you taste things, transferring only tiny amounts to
your tongue, you are very unlikely to poison yourself.

Having said this, it's a crap way to test for antifreeze; unless you
know what coolant with and without antifreeze tastes like, it will tell
you nothing. The OP should just flush and refill with 40-50% antifreeze.
Takes no time, and is well worth doing.

--
Grunff

"Grunff" wrote in message
...
snip

The OP should just flush and refill with 40-50% antifreeze.
Takes no time, and is well worth doing.


I wish I had a 50 quid for ever motorist who has thought that, only to find
they have problems ! What you say was true some years back but not now, many
engines have coolant systems that are far from simple to refill unless one
knows how to do it.

"Mike" wrote
| "r.p.mcmurphy" wrote
| i heard that antifreeze tastes sweet
| So does cyanide I believe.

I have always believed that it tasted of bitter almonds. Miss D L Sayers
("Bitter Almonds" (A Montague Egg Story): In the teeth of the evidence,
Gollancz, 1939.) is usually reliable on poisons.

Owain

:::Jerry:::: wrote:


I wish I had a 50 quid for ever motorist who has thought that, only to find
they have problems ! What you say was true some years back but not now, many
engines have coolant systems that are far from simple to refill unless one
knows how to do it.

Ok, it's been simple on every car I've ever owned (which has included
Saab, BMW, Volvo, Renault, Rover and Honda).


--
Grunff

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 22:43:06 +0000, (Steve Firth)
wrote:


Did you know that the urine of diabetics tastes sweet as well, because
of the sugar in it. Perhaps you should volunteer your services to the
local hospital?

If you didn't sound serious, I would say you were taking the ****!

(;-)

Graham

In article , Grunff
writes
:::Jerry:::: wrote:

Well I wouldn't go that far, but he shouldn't drop dead (in the dilutions
*normally* found in road going engines) !
Trouble is, you don't know what else might have been added or become
deposited into the coolant.

Chemists have been tasting stuff for hundreds of years, and until a few
decades ago it was perfectly normal lab practice. As long as you're
careful about how you taste things, transferring only tiny amounts to
your tongue, you are very unlikely to poison yourself.
You try that with cocaine your dead before you hit the floor
--
Zaax
http://www.ukgatsos.com

Owain wrote:

"Mike" wrote
| "r.p.mcmurphy" wrote
| i heard that antifreeze tastes sweet
| So does cyanide I believe.

I have always believed that it tasted of bitter almonds. Miss D L Sayers
("Bitter Almonds" (A Montague Egg Story): In the teeth of the evidence,
Gollancz, 1939.) is usually reliable on poisons.

Apparently, the ability to detect the almondy scent of cyanide is genetic -
if you don't have the right gene, you won't be able to smell or taste it.

Sheila
(I really must re-read the Sayers books.)

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 20:53:54 -0000, "r.p.mcmurphy"
wrote:

i need a quick check for sufficient antifreeze.

Go to Partco, buy an antifreeze tester. Cheap.

Assuming that your rad is filled with a mixture of only water and
antifreeze (i.e. no raspberry syrup) then the specific gravity tells
you their proportions.

--
Smert' spamionam

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 21:36:14 -0000, "Mike" wrote:

antifreeze tastes sweet

So does cyanide I believe.

No, that's the metal acetates - usually lead acetate.

Cyanide is tasteless, but does have a smell. The smell is that of
_bitter_ almonds, which don't smell much like almonds either. The
best way to detect cyanide is to smoke, for you can taste a flavour
difference in tobacco at much lower concentrations than you can smell
the cyanide itself. Friend of mine (a devout smoker) tried very hard
to have smoking made compulsory in his cyanide-handling lab,

--
Smert' spamionam

"andrewpreece" wrote in message
...

"BigWallop" wrote
snipped

I heard that stuff makes you go blind almost immediately, as opposed to
doing it the slow male way, is this true?


Methyl alcohol makes you go blind. I don't think ethylene glycol can be
terribly poisonous since the Italians were adulterating wine with it at
one
time.

Andy.



I thought that's where I read it made you blind? Isn't that how the
Italians got caught?

zaax wrote in :


Chemists have been tasting stuff for hundreds of years, and until a
few decades ago it was perfectly normal lab practice. As long as
you're careful about how you taste things, transferring only tiny
amounts to your tongue, you are very unlikely to poison yourself.


You try that with cocaine your dead before you hit the floor

If there were a prize for the year's daftest comment, I'd nominate this.

mike

zaax wrote:
In article , Grunff writes

Chemists have been tasting stuff for hundreds of years, and until a
few decades ago it was perfectly normal lab practice. As long as
you're careful about how you taste things, transferring only tiny
amounts to your tongue, you are very unlikely to poison yourself.

You try that with cocaine your dead before you hit the floor


Erm, ok. You don't get out much, do you?


--
Grunff

Andy Dingley wrote in message . ..
On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 20:53:54 -0000, "r.p.mcmurphy"
wrote:

i need a quick check for sufficient antifreeze.

Put some in a bottle, put it in the freezer, see if it freezes.

Ethylene glycol is used in most automotive anti-freeze mixture. It is
toxic. It is used as a wood preservative. I don't know what you hope
to determine from the taste.

The corrosion inhibitors degrade in use; the antifreeze mixture
absorbs oxygen the glycols combine with the oxygen to form acidic
compounds. When the reserve alkalinity is exhausted, the mixture
becomes acidic and galvanic corrosion starts devouring some engine
components. The usual recommendation is to drain and refill every 3
years. Some recent cars use OAT (organic acid technology), which lasts
much longer, but I know nothing about.I

Propylene glycol is also used as anti-freeze in situations where a
toxic mixture would be a hazard, for example in heating systems with
an indirect hot water heater. It is non-toxic and it is very, very
sweet. It is used as an artificial sweetener. I think that PG was
probably what was used to adulterate the wine; I thought it was the
Austrians.

Tasting is often used with propylene glycol to identify leaks, it is
so sweet it will put your teeth on edge. Tasting is probably
inadvisable, it has it's own hazards. A heating contractor I know of
visited a dark basement in which he had installed a boiler system. The
system had been filled with a propylene glycol antifreeze mixture. He
noticed a puddle on the floor near the boiler, so dipped a finger
into it and tasted it.

It wasn't sweet, so therefore it couldn't be anti-freeze. As he
wondered what it could be, he noticed a large alsatian dog watching
him from a corner.

"Steve Firth" wrote
| I know that people sometimes like to see the Italians as the
| source of all things bad, but it was in fact the Austrians
| who were poisoning wine with ethylene glycol.

And Hitler was Austrian.

Owain

On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 17:16:32 -0000, "Owain"
strung together this:

And Hitler was Austrian.

Ah well, conclusive proof then, if proof were needed.
--

SJW
A.C.S. Ltd

Subject: Quick test for antifreeze?
From: (Steve Firth)

Did you know that the urine of diabetics tastes sweet

Who discovered that?

On 20 Nov 2004 23:23:27 GMT, (Paper2002AD) wrote:

Subject: Quick test for antifreeze?
From: (Steve Firth)

Did you know that the urine of diabetics tastes sweet

Who discovered that?


Urine for a surprise....


The consultant urologist is demonstrating urine sampling to a class of
students. As each sample is passed to him, he dips a finger in the
bottle, raises his hand to his mouth and licks it. the standard tests
follow and after each one he mutters "Hmm, thought so, too high/low a
sugar level", etc.

The students were then invited to follow his example, which they duly
did, including the finger dipping and licking.

At the end of the class, the consultant addressed the students. "While
I cannot fault you on your general techniques", he said, "I would
recommend that you pay more attention to observation". He continued,
"If you had been more alert, you would have realised that, when I
dipped my finger in the sample prior to testing it, I then licked a
different digit.

Class dismissed".


--

..andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

On 20 Nov 2004 23:23:27 GMT, (Paper2002AD) wrote:

Did you know that the urine of diabetics tastes sweet

Who discovered that?

It's ancient, probably Greek, although I've not bothered to check.
The term "**** prophet" (a doctor diagnosing by inspecting urine)
goes back to the 17th century.