Technical Please school me on antifreeze.

I really don't know about pure water. The minerals in water tend to be submicron in size and are very difficult to remove via filtration. Have you had any of the filtered water analyzed for mineral content? I'm trying to imagine what damage could occur due to the high solvency of the pure water and am having trouble thinking of any negatives from it. Perhaps a drying out of seals and gaskets? That's a good question I can pass along to my contacts at the coolant mfgr and see what they say about it.

 

Most of us in the cold areas of the US run a 50/50 mix of antifreeze and water and now the parts stores here sell "pre Mixed" coolant for those who are too lazy or too stupid to figure out how to get a 50/50 mix on antifreeze and water in their cooling systems.
Some of the warm area brigade believe that pure water be it tap or distilled cools better than antifreeze but they forget that the cooling system also needs rust inhibitors and water pump lubrication in the cooling system that antifreeze provides.
Over the years I have seen far too many cracked blocks and boiled over engines with frozen radiators in cars and trucks that someone decided that he didn't need to put antifreeze in. Putting a blankie over the radiator doesn't help a lot unless you have something to keep the engine block warm such as a magnetic block heater. Otherwise water freezes the ice expands, the block cracks or the radiator splits.
I live in one of the areas of the US that is mecha for those "undocumented workers" from
South of the US border and coming from an area that it doesn't freeze in they often end up at the side of the road the first cold snap when the air chill through the radiator freezes the water in the radiator and the car overheats even though it is 25 degrees outside.

 

If what you need is corrosion protection use a water wetter type product.
http://www.summitracing.com/int/parts/red-80204/overview/

 

I buy reverse osmosis water for home use, for $3 a glass 5 gallon bottle. So, I too would like to know if this is as good as distilled for radiator use.

 

Jeff, use coolant and you will never have to flush that old radiator again.....one less job to do !

 

http://www.labconco.com/news/whats-the-difference-between-ro-and-di-water-pur

It looks to me like RO may not remove as much particulate matter as DI, but it's surely much better than tap water.

Or maybe one of the brainiacs above have a better response.

 

I might blow $3 on RO radiator water for a car I care about but no way am I buying distilled.

 

DI water is available from most tropical fish stores for about 45 cents per gal. It's good for topping off batteries too.

 

this is all a good read.
personally I usually use RO water (or whatever's handy) and cheap Walmart 100% anti freeze. I try to mix 50/50 ratio. sometimes even that fluctuates. in the fall thru early spring I add 100% anti freeze to top off.

 

Keep in mind that an inexpensive hydrometer from your local parts store will help you get the ratio correct. It's a cheap tool but very handy for this. Also, cheap Walmart brand anything, is that really what you want to put in your hot rod? If it's cheap, there's a reason. Additives cost money, if you don't put any in you can sell your product for less. Think about it.

 

The water here is hard and a tea kettle would get caked with sediment deposits in a few months. This is the reason I buy RO water, it makes better tasting coffee and tea.

I just looked inside the tea kettle I have been using for 10 years and it is as clean as new. This is good enough for me. I'm sure I can use RO water with no fear of lime or sediment in my cooling system.

 

Thanks for the info,B4U. I know more now than I did 1/2 hr ago.

 

Blues4u seems to know his stuff. Most important for you is antifreeze that works with aluminum. Years ago many did not - that why GM sold your alum V8 design to BMC. Americans killed that motor with bad antiF and learned to hate. AntiF makers have now caught up with all alum in motors - BE SURE - label should say.

 

Distilled water is mineral hungry and the most universal solvent. Do not use it in your coolant system.

 

You mean it might actually clean up the coolant passages? Seriously, what is your reasoning for this advice?

 

The 50/50 mix is for freeze protection, you can dilute more, but may lose some of the protection. Antifreeze is generally changed at 7 yr intervals. Ask your buddy for a jug of what he used before, or just top it off with water. After 7 years drain and replace, if you can't get the same stuff, flush and use a new type.

 

We live here in Minnesota and the correct antifreeze and the amount we use is quite important. One issue that is coming up often is the( orange antifreeze) that GM uses in their new cars. It seems quite a few local mechanics agree with this subject along with our Car Quest auto store. The orange is corrosive and promotes head gasket failure. The past years I have completely flushed it out and gone with the green. Is this topic true??

 

Ford recommends a minum of 40% to a max of 60% antifreeze. When I was in the Air Force their antifreeze cans said if stored at a -20 deg mix with water straight ethylene glycol will start to freeze at about+8 deg Fahenheit

 

It's useless to identify antifreeze by the color, there is no industry standard for color on antifreeze, you need to identify the type. Please go back a page and read my lengthy post.

Re GM Dexcool, per this page (see link below) it is a nitrite free OAT type coolant suitable for passenger car AND heavy duty diesel engine use. This is a very good antifreeze and no, it is not corrosive and definitely will NOT promote head gasket failure if maintained correctly. It is far superior to conventional antifreeze. Your local mechanics are ignorant, and I don't mean that as an insult to them, I'm sure they are great guys, but they are simply ignorant on antifreeze technology.

http://www.matweb.com/search/datasheet_print.aspx?matguid=1c0e4db894344d1db54b1e89fc68b762

 

When neglected & not serviced & the Prestone labels claims 100k interval of life..... I did say neglected though. Dealing with shops & dealerships in & out for decades it "coolant" is truely a forgotten maintainence area of a car or hot rod as any. Reguardless of its good or bad points , dex cool has been a huge boost to our automotive business of 40 plus years. I've encountered problems with it eating the aluminum lower manifolds of various gm engines at 70k miles & under 5 years old some kinda bad fast unlike its counterparts. The visual effects of a neglected Dex Cool system is to antifreeze what ethanol is to gasoline. It seems to get with the corrosion program much quicker than the green antifreeze many of us grew up with. Ohh recently ....a older high end chemical distributor pal quit drinking Mt. Dew after he toured a plant & seen in less than a months time how the final soda ate thru a 4 inch thick aluminum holding tank. I still drink it , tickles your innerds! Neglect = problems. Flux

 

50/50 mix with distilled water. The per-mixed stuff is bullshit. Change it out in the summer and winter. Do NOT ingest. Keep away from pets.

 

My avatar has an aluminum block, heads, and radiator. When I did the initial fill, I used Prestone mixed 50/50 with distilled water(Walmart has it $1 gal, btw), an additive (Purple somethin' ?) and a sacrificial anode in place of the drain petcock...hope I got it right, it was the best info I could find at the time.
Lots of great info here, btw, thanks.

 

Blues4u thanks for an excellent write up. I worked at a GM dealer for 11 years as an auto tech.
I replaced many head gaskets and intake manifold gaskets on cars and trucks , under warranty.
Which meant most were under 3 years old. All had Dexcool. the orange coolant.
One thing I noticed was , the replacement gaskets had updated numbers and we put orange
coolant back in.
I conclude the problem was the gaskets weren't compatible with the coolant additives.
Ford also had a lot of head gasket , intake leaks on the 3.8 sixes of the same period.
Ford used yellow coolant. The color of the coolant didn't mater , the additives did.
They seem to have solved the problems , still lots of orange coolant around.

 

I was a Chevy partsman back in the '60s and '70s. The dealership bought the cheapest anti-freeze they could find. The first alarm was when a customer's heater wouldn't work in his Vega. It was clogged with aluminum "stuff". A little later we pulled the head off another Vega. The interior walls of the block eaten away (about 1/6 inch). That was an extreme case and a long time ago, but I would avoid the low price alternative.
1976 to 2000 I worked as a parts rep. for european and a japanese car companies. They both started selling their own brand anti-freeze. The reason they did was to better control the quality of the products their cars were being service with. The main selling point was they "contained no silicates". When they later added "pre-mix" it was with de-ionized water. Back in those days it was three to four times the price of the parts store brands. I still use it. (Volvo, VW, MB, Honda.BMW, etc.).
Norm

 

Thanks Blues4U I have yet to investigate the jalopy but I am going to change it out as an up and coming project. So Nitrite free would be clearly stated and is this a universal coolant or would it say Gm specific as in dexcool? Lots of serious info here.

I just saw the link there on the dexcool suits all types... Thanks again and also to the others intense input. Happy New Year.

 

You should be fine... making a mental note to pick up some distilled water this week. I have aluminum intake, heads and radiator too, as well as the anode thang.

 

Norson I know what you mean about antifreeze in the sixties and seventies. If you wanted your engine to last you bought good antifreeze and changed it every 2 years or it would get corroded to hell on the inside.

That all changed some time in the early eighties. Today if you take apart an aluminum motor or any motor, the inside of the coolant passages are clean and corrosion free as a rule even if the car is neglected and never had the coolant changed.

 

That type of coolant is universal, in that it can be used in any engine. It's not a GM thing or a Dexcool thing, it is the most current state of the art technology in the coolants industry. My understanding is there are only a few actual manufacturers of engine coolants, i.e. Old World Technologies and Chevron-Texaco; everyone else just repackages/relabels their antifreeze. GM doesn't blend their own antifreeze, they purchase from the mfgr and relabel it. They may have it dyed to the color they want, but that is just a dye, has no bearing on performance.

Just do a google search for nitrite free OAT coolant and you'll get a list of products. Any of them should work great for you, just either blend them with deionized/RO/distilled water or buy the premix, and then just maintain it as I described above. I.e. maintain freeze level, & watch ph balance (should stay between 7 & 10).

 

BLUSE4U has a lot of really good information with respect to what is formulated for coolants and the changing technology of antifreeze. The automotive cooling system is a grossly overlooked with respect to maintenance and operation.
The OP asked to be schooled on Antifreeze...but the coolant in a system has other aspects of cooling system performance other than freeze protection.

• Corrosion/scaling protection; one that can be addressed through the use of an OAT 'extended life coolant' or if you use a coolant that has a Nitrite based additive package, test it and add SCA to maintain a proper level.
• Freezing; should be addressed by selecting/maintaining a proper glycol to water ratio
• Boil over protection; should be addressed by maintaining proper glycol to water ratio
• Heat transfer ; you guessed it selecting/maintaining proper glycol to water ratio

The proper water to coolant ratio will vary most likely by the climate and conditions that the vehicle is to be operated in.
Water has a specific heat of 1 (one) and the definition is that it takes 1 BTU to raise 1 pound of water 1 degree Fahrenheit.
As you add glycol to water the specific heat changes based on the concentration by volume or ratio of glycol/water

This means that if you choose a 65% ratio of antifreeze to water ratio you have reduced the heat transfer ability of the coolant by 20%. If you have a radiator that has marginal capacity, you just compounded the problem choosing this mixture that will give you maximum freeze protection.

So you can see that the basis for a mixture in Minnesota is different than that of someone that operates/resides in Oz. You can also see that if you choose to use 100% glycol, the heat transfer and freeze protection go in the dumper. This is why I question the use of a cooling product that is trying to compensate for boil over problems that can again be trying to address a cooling system problem using a 'mechanic in a can' approach to solve a problem that is rooted in a performance problem with other system components.

You can see that by adding glycol based antifreeze you can increase the boiling point all the way to beyond where anyone would want to operate their automobile engine.
Puking coolant all over the roadway is traditional anyway.
Due to the climate that I operate in I use a Summer and a different Winter blend in a couple of my vehicles. I have one that has a marginally sized radiator for the horsepower of the power plant. I run a 35% glycol based antifreeze to 65%water ratio in the summer and a 50/50 in the winter.
In OZ I would think the 35% glycol/water would work for you year around and could be tuned based on cooling system performance.

Hope this helps. I'd like to think of it as walk around the hot rod to see the front, side and back view to more fully understand what you are looking at.

Larry