DEX-COOL, Conventional Green, & G-05... My Experiences

Using the garden hose..... Depending on where you live, using the garden hose to backflush may be more convenient BUT... doing so also introduces a LOT of harmful minerals to the system. I happen to live in a very hard water area and have replaced several radiators in cars over the years due to mineral deposits clogging up the radiator tubes.

Reply to
Philip ®
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Name me ONE make of car that pumps coolant back to the transmission.

Reply to
Steve

|Using the garden hose..... Depending on where you live, using the |garden hose to backflush may be more convenient BUT... doing so also |introduces a LOT of harmful minerals to the system. I happen to live |in a very hard water area and have replaced several radiators in cars |over the years due to mineral deposits clogging up the radiator |tubes.

Current thinking is that the residual tap water left in the block after backflush & drain is beneficial. The balance of the water added should ideally by RO water. Distilled if RO is NA. Rex in Fort Worth

Reply to
Rex B

|Joe Poitras wrote: | |> Quick physics lesson: |> |> A liquid under pressure under the absence of air will not boil or steam. | |False. | |A fixed pressure RAISES the boiling point, but if the engine gets hot |enough it will boil coolant. Don't believe it? Just cut your water pump |belt and run the engine for a while. By your theory, the coolant should |never boil, right? Try it if you really believe that.... :-p

The water will continue to expand until the resultant pressure overcomes the cap, then it will escape into the low-pressure atmosphere and boil. If you had a vessel able to contain the pressure of a quantity of water, no airspace, I think it would never boil. At least within the temps an IC engine could generate. Rex in Fort Worth

Reply to
Rex B

Transmission fluid can enter the radiator and water can enter the transmission. In this case, the leaky cooler tank in the radiator will have to be replaced as well as rebuilding the transmission. One of the common indications of transmission fluid in the radiator coolant is the "strawberry milkshake" appearance of the coolant. this is a break down situation and not normal for any car. [/copied] from:

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Reply to
Slicknick

Well this may happen if the radiator leaks between the water reservoir and the atf reservoirel. Contamination would be at the radiator level. The effect is the same: strawberry milkshake.

transmission. In this case,

radiator coolant is

Reply to
Daniel

Reply to
Joe Poitras

If my rad cap stuck, then it wouldn't boil out until i ruptured a line, then there would be an immediate loss in pressure and then it would boil very rapidly, as the liquid would have been superheated (beyond it's normal boiling point)

Reply to
Joe Poitras

But it would still create pressure either rupturing a line or causing an explosion.

BTJustice

Reply to
Buford T. Justice

Thank you. I appreciate that.

No has ever accused me of being on the left, lol. I still to this day remember a science class I took, probably high school, where the science teacher explained that water is the only known liquid in the universe that expands when it cools / freezes and contracts when it warms / boils. An extremely great example are the highways. As water works it way into the crevices of the pavement and then freeze, they crack. I also remember a story (my facts may be a little hazy) that some kid got a lot of money for winning a government sponsored contest. Some small country has a surplus of explosive cannon balls. The kid figured that if water was put into them and then froze, the cannon balls would break in half, have the powder frozen in the ice, and the government could use the iron. Pretty smart kid.

I think the original problem was when I put in the term "steam" into one of the posts. I damn near wish I had never done that.

Is micro-boiling the same thing that happens when coolant causes cativation inside a water pump?

BTJustice

Reply to
Buford T. Justice

In all fairness, I just tried the example experiment with a used, needless syringe (my Dad is a diabetic). I could not get it to "boil" pulling the plunger fast or slow. The only bubbles I saw occurred when I left my finger on the syringe to where air was able to get in. That isn't boiling. Boiling is when water changes from a liquid to a gas. What the syringe did was simply let in air. He is right that water expands when cool / frozen.

A lot of that also depends on the ratio of water and coolant. After all, it is boiling that causes a boil over right?

2 cars then that originally had DEX-COOL gave you no problems? Glad to hear it didn't. Keep in mind most people, including myself, wanted to switch their older cars to DEX-COOL to get the long life benefits it offered. Thousands of people tried this. Some have had no problems, but most have. The funny thing is that some with DEX-COOL from the factory have problems. I don't think anyone has an exact answer as to why DEX-COOL slugs, makes mud, makes red cement, etc. since it is advertised as being compatible with green. I think it is air and hot temperture.

That is understandable on your part. Understand that I checked the coolant level in the overflow tanks weekly at first then about twice a month after noticing the coolant remained at the same level in the overflow tanks.. I just had different problems. The smoke coming out of the S-10, the gasket in the Lumina going bad, my mom's Monte with the red mud, etc. Since giving up on DEX-COOL, I have seen no problems with what I still own personally and work on for my family.

The other thing too is that it may make water pump seals last longer, but it doesn't protect the metal nearly as well as conventional green. Through doing research on G-05, I have read on several webpages that the reason Ford and Chrysler didn't go OAT when GM did is because of water pump, seal, and gasket damage they discovered in their testing. I guess GM put too much on the line to back down from it. Probably explains the lawsuit to some degree. They have now gone to G-05 which is an HOAT coolant containing low silicates to protect not only the metal of the water pump better than OAT / DEX-COOL does, but also protect other metals better including metal. Zerex

5 year / 100,000 mile conventional green in the white jugs is also a low silicate formula and is what I am running and having great luck with.

BTJustice

Reply to
Buford T. Justice

I like that post. Good one Steve.

BTJustice

Reply to
Buford T. Justice

I am lucky. The water in my hometown is in between soft and medium. Keeps the cost of soap down, lol.

BTJustice

Reply to
Buford T. Justice

Could have swore a local mechanic told me that once. I'll ask him here in a few days. If he says that is true, I will ask if he knows of a vehicle that does.

BTJustice

Reply to
Buford T. Justice

Yes, but that pressure is not caused by steam, but by the liquid trying to expand when heated. A liquid under pressure caused by heating is trying every thing it can to boil, but because of the enclosed space, it can't. "Buford T. Justice"

Reply to
Joe Poitras

Except that it ISN'T. Any residual minerals have the potential for screwing up the corrosion inhibitors in the coolant OR precipitating out and clogging the radiator. Hard water (calcium) typically doesn't upset corrosion inhibitors and in fact my help inhibit corrosion by keeping the pH high... but it also precipitates out. Sulfurous water won't precipitate out, but tends to lower pH and override corrosion protection. Iron precipitates and "binds up" some of the corrosion inhibitors. Chlorine and amine added to municipal water are corrosive to iron engine components. Basically, any impurity commonly found in north American tap water is at best a non-helpful thing to have in the coolant.

The safest course of action is to flush with hose water, drain completely (including the block drain plugs), and fill with a mix of distilled water and antifreeze.

Reply to
Steve

Nice answer to a question that was never asked.

Let me re-phrase: Name one car that pumps engine coolant back to the transmission BY DESIGN.

Of-frickin-COURSE antifreeze can get into the transmission when the heat exchanger in the bottom of the radiator fails, everyone knows that! The original claim was that some cars have a heat exchanger in the transmission which recieves engine coolant from the radiator, rather than having the heat exchanger in the radiator where it recieves oil from the transmission. I don't believe I've ever read about such a design and I've CERTAINLY never seen one, and I asked for an example.

Sheesh.

Slicknick wrote:

transmission. In this case,

radiator coolant is

Reply to
Steve

See the part where I said "a fixed pressure" in the quote below?

See again the part about "a fixed pressure." Real-world radiators operate at a fixed pressure limit (say, 15 psi).

Reply to
Steve

. I still to this day

That is ONLY true in a narrow band of temperatures around the freezing point of water. From about 2-3 degrees C on upward, water expands with increasing temperature, just like everything else. From about -3C on downward, ice contracts with decreasing temperature, just like everything else.

Reply to
Steve

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