It's not absolutely necessary to have coolant in the engine just to start it for a short time. We ressurected two dead soldiers at the homecoming last weekend with no coolant in them, and ran them for 2-3 minutes each with no apparent damage. One quick trick is to duct tape a garden hose into the water pump inlet, leave the fan belt off, and trickle water into the engine until it runs out of the thermostat housing a little. As long as the block is full of water, you can idle an engine for an extended period of time that way. Just have the vehicle outside or over a floor drain to get rid of the overflow.
Jerry
Thanks Jerry. Mostly, I need to stop putting coolant in until I get all the leaks squared away. Getting tired of cleanup it up off the garage floor!
