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

I always heard some do and some don't. Is that not true? If I am wrong then I am wrong.

It makes since that the transmission fluid going out of the transmission to the radiator would cool it as it is getting away from the hot transmission and the engine. But then it always makes since that coolant going to the transmission would carry the heat away and keep the transmission cool.

BTJustice

blqv07$fdi4l$ snipped-for-privacy@ID-208839.news.uni-berlin.de,

Somebody flunked basic physics.

Read:

To apply that to this situation: The state of the coolant as it stays in a pressurized cooling system is going to be different from when you

*depressurize* the same. If you equalize the pressure, of course you're going to get steam! But in and of itself, that doesn't mean that the coolant had boiled prior to you messing around with the radiator cap.

So is mine. From '74 Chevy Suburban with the 454 engine, to the '86 and '87 Buicks, the '87 Cavalier, to the 1993 Cadillac, to the 1999 Chevy Blazer, and my 2002 Pontiac Grand Am. And some were maintained by their owners, and others taken to shops for service (for those relatives who couldn't be bothered to maintain the car themselves or have one of the more knowledgeable in our family do it). And I can tell you that of the cars that used DEX-Cool, NONE of them have had a problem with it. Of course, we've also been wise enough not to assume that just because DEX was good for the engines with it, that it was also good for the engines that came with the green stuff.

Now, I mean no offense with what I'm about to write, honestly. But has it crossed your mind that other than the DEX Cool (which has people on both camps who swear by it and against it), there's one other linking factor among all the GM cars your family has owned? Particularly, that one person was responsible for maintaining the cooling system on all of these cars, and presumably followed the same procedures and got the SAME results each and every time? Especially when other folks are religiously following certain other procedures (keeping the tank full, checking the system from time to time, etc) and have not had a problem?

And for the record, yes, I think GM made a mistake with Dex Cool. That being that they wanted a maintenance free, long life coolant that was very forgiving of boneheaded mistakes like letting the coolant level run low or letting a Jiffy Lube kid dump green fluid into a tank filled with orange fluid. Unfortunately, it requires just as much attention as silicate-based coolants, and if people don't give it that attention, then you run into trouble.

Bullfeathers. Ethylene Glycol antifreeze has been used in engines with aluminum compoenents and in aluminum-block engines for decades. Even by GM.

Temperature is temperature. There's nothing "balanced" differently at all.

Wouldn't surprise ME at all. If I were a GM owner again (heaven forbid the day, but at the rate Daimler is wrecking Chrysler I may have no choice...) I would dump the DexCool immediately and run a G-05 based coolant at far more frequent change intervals. The ONLY reason GM went to DexCool is to try and extend service intervals for advertising purposes (Lookee! you can weld the radiator cap on and NEVER worry about it! ). If you REALLY want the car to last a long time and don't care so much about change intervals, your objective may be at cross-purposes for GMs intended use of DexCool anyway.

Oh PLEASE! No fair. You could run a Mopar 2.2 for 20 years on horse pee for coolant and paint thinner for gasoline. :-)

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

You started out with a lot of good facts and recommendations about DexCool.

Now you're just off in left field and losing more credibility every time you post. Water EXPANDS as it warms, and that happens well before it actually boils, and that's the point that everyone you've now called names has been trying to point out.

Now, what you are probably thinking about is that in a closed cooling system at, say, 15 PSI and 210 degree thermostat temperature, there may be localized hot-spots inside the cylinder heads that see "microboiling" under heavy load conditions. The tiny vapor bubbles formed in those areas immedately re-condense into the bulk coolant so the radiator doesn't "boil over" or vent excessively, but micro-boiling does happen. Sometimes with disastrous consequences- Ford had a lot of trouble with early 5.4L v8 cylinder heads where micro-boiling would actually erode metal away (cavitation damage) until the wear perforated a combustion chamber.

Buford T. Justice wrote:

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.

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

|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

|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

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:

Dont know about you but .I retrofitted over 20 cars from r-12 to 134a and only had to change the high and low side valves and vacuum of course.Did my first one three years ago and its still blowing cold as ice.Different systems?????

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

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)

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

BTJustice

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

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

I like that post. Good one Steve.

BTJustice