question Coolant Advice "again"

[Bruce Tuncks]

It was water with a bit of water-soluble oil added. The radiator guy took off the top tank and rodded out the pipes then resoldered the top tank.

I sure learned a lesson from that. These days I try and replace every 2 years like you. There is an instrument I have seen where you put the end into the radiator liquid and it says if you need to replace the coolant. I think it might measure the pH.

I saw this at my local service shop where they always try and upsell you stuff, it might have even been a bogus thing they use to sell a drain and flush.

This same shop deny using recycled oil in their servicing. I said that I would use that and charge for good stuff if I were them. They said that lots of places use the recycled oil and it looks just the same on the dipstick.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I just googled up that meter and got a site that said to measure the voltage between battery negative and the coolant in the radiator. It said you can do this with a multimeter. If the voltage is more than 0.4 volts, replace the coolant it says.

[facthunter]

You'd be able to get a test strip to do that .Litmus was one but it's not quite neutral .I have some soil Ph test kits somewhere.. If there's combustion gases leaking into the water anywhere, you've got problems. and you must find the cause if the motor is valuable. .Otherwise use silverseal or similar and keep it going as long as you can. if it's a town bomb. Lots of poor quality aluminium castings are porous and many were sealed during manufacture by sealing with 'plastic" in a solvent .This doesn't last forever and was mainly used on inlet manifolds that NOW are often OF plastic. Some 2 stroke motorcycle crankcases end up leaking air and cause mixture troubles as they are pretty thin..

Good stuff is Vacu cast in metal dies where the large volume offsets the extra cost.. Nev

[APenNameAndThatA]

GDay ApenName...., The colour is just a dye. There are green, red, orange, blue and yellow coloured coolants. In Au green has been the predominant colour but now red seems to be taking over. The colours are a convenient "shorthand" for describing the coolant. The significance of the colour is in itself not high, there being a very loose convention, that GREEN is appropriate for certain, mainly older cooling system containing copper and copper alloys and RED is for more modern engines, particularise of a European type, with little or no copper in the cooling system. Also Europe has particular environmental restrictions on certain chemicals - the red coolants may fall within these requirements.

 

So having said the above - changing coolant can be:

• forced on you by the brand/type you were using becoming unavailable
  
• a more desirable product (cost / formulation / etc) becoming available
  

In my case I feel that the change from Radicool Concentrate (Green) to Radicool SF-O (Red) may more closely align with Rotax specifications and as I will be able to sue the Red over my road fleet (not the tractors) has cost & storage space benefits.

When I said colour I meant what the colour symbolised. When I said don’t change colour, I meant don’t change coolant type. If the convention is looser than I thought, then that was me being wrong.

[M61A1]

When I said colour I meant what the colour symbolised. When I said don’t change colour, I meant don’t change coolant type. If the convention is looser than I thought, then that was me being wrong.

• Green coolant is your conventional coolant (Ethylene Glycol base) and is the most common type of coolant found.
  
• Red coolant is typically has a base of Organic Acid Technology which has a different chemical makeup of green coolant and is designed to be suitable for aluminium radiators. Red coolant is often silicate and phosphate free for use in later Japanese and Euro vehicles.
  
• Blue coolant is usually an Organic Acid Technology base and what makes it different from red coolant is that they’re normally Borate free which is a requirement for modern day Japanese vehicles that are supplied with blue coolant from factory.
  
• Yellow or Orange coolants are the latest in technology and are normally a universal product. Some universal coolants will allow top up mixing to a certain percentage of the overall capacity of the cooling system, so it’s important to keep this in mind when topping up.
  

Can I mix different coolants?

Provided that the coolants which you are using have identical chemical makeup (for example, if two coolants are based on Ethylene Glycol), then it is normally safe for you to mix them together. If you aren’t certain on which base the current coolant that you have in your car uses, there are universal mixes available. If you don’t have access to a coolant then water may be used in place of it. However, it’s very important to keep in mind that water’s boiling point is significantly lower than a coolant’s and therefore, is less effective. Furthermore, coolants have rust-resistant properties whereas water does not.

[skippydiesel]

• Green coolant is your conventional coolant (Ethylene Glycol base) and is the most common type of coolant found.
  
• Red coolant is typically has a base of Organic Acid Technology which has a different chemical makeup of green coolant and is designed to be suitable for aluminium radiators. Red coolant is often silicate and phosphate free for use in later Japanese and Euro vehicles.
  
• Blue coolant is usually an Organic Acid Technology base and what makes it different from red coolant is that they’re normally Borate free which is a requirement for modern day Japanese vehicles that are supplied with blue coolant from factory.
  
• Yellow or Orange coolants are the latest in technology and are normally a universal product. Some universal coolants will allow top up mixing to a certain percentage of the overall capacity of the cooling system, so it’s important to keep this in mind when topping up.
  

Can I mix different coolants?

Provided that the coolants which you are using have identical chemical makeup (for example, if two coolants are based on Ethylene Glycol), then it is normally safe for you to mix them together. If you aren’t certain on which base the current coolant that you have in your car uses, there are universal mixes available. If you don’t have access to a coolant then water may be used in place of it. However, it’s very important to keep in mind that water’s boiling point is significantly lower than a coolant’s and therefore, is less effective. Furthermore, coolants have rust-resistant properties whereas water does not.

 

 

Very well put, concise and almost comprehensive -

• For those who live in cooler climates the ANTI-FREEZE properties are important. In my younger days we always referred to the additive to radiator water in the generic term "anti-freeze". Frozen water/ice does not circulate/blocked cooling system with obvious results. Water expands when frozen - the cooling system can burst from the pressure, again obvious results.
  
• ANT - CAVITATION is another feature - not 100% sure what this means, in the context of a cooling system but think it has to do with suppressing/preventing the coolant from boiling at a single point, that may result/cause erosion of the metal surface.
  
• LUBRICATION - cooling systems rely on seals around rotating parts like pumps to maintain pressure/prevent leaking. The lubricant provided some lubrication/slip between seal lip & rotational part/shaft, also helps maintain the condition of seals flexibility.
  
• Not sure what the term is but the coolant also works to reduce the tendency of dissimilar metals (electrodes) bathed in a liquid (electrolyte) to produce an electric current (battery) - this is a major contributor to corrosion within a cooling system
  

Other than in a very short term emergency situation, I would never recommenced the use of water alone, in a modern engine (last 50 years +). The younger the engine , the less tolerant of ordinary water.

As a reasonably easy & cheap precaution, I would recommend flushing the cooling system, when changing from one coolant type or brand to another - why take the chance of making some nasty unforeseen cocktail, with potentially damaging results.

[facthunter]

Water is better at taking heat away than Glycol is although glycol boils and freezes over a wider range (anti freeze antiboil). That's why the older 400mls concentrates were so widely used for basically their anticorrosion properties. Glycol also leaks more and can degrade to an acidic condition. The chemistry of coolants is complex and over the years has caused a vast array of different offerings to come on the Market. Most are quite expensive and some definitely won't mix well. Perhaps not so much the later offerings. The old rainwater and soluble (sulphuretted and metal cutting ) oil which goes white was used about 70 years ago. It ruined rubber hoses quite quickly and created sludge and goo that blocked radiator cores particularly honeycomb which could not be "rodded out" by removing header tanks and physically pushing rods through tubes. Nev