Antifreeze- is any type OK?

[Soundguy]

Yep.. kind alike that 'preventative maintence stuff'

soundguy

 

[horse7]

I went round and round about this with my truck.

The short distillation of too many hours of reading and a few hours of doing is:
If you are going to change the coolant every year, it is cheapest to put in the common green Prestone stuff (low silicate only, not the years old high silicate you might have stashed in the garage, they changed the formula not that many years ago) plus SCA (FW15 or FW16 or DCA). May slightly shorten water pump life from the bits of nitrate pinged off the liners from cavitation wearing on pump seals.

If you aren't going to change the fluid for extended intervals, a name brand ELC is better (no SCA needed). But-- the coolant system has to be pretty clean if there isn't already ELC in the cooling system. Multiple rounds of distilled water enemas needed to purge the old stuff (drain-adddistilled-runenginetillhot-drain-...) otherwise ELC is a waste of money. Note that the premix may result in an understrength AF mixture if there is significant distilled left in the passages... if you know the coolant capacity and how much you drained, then you know how much distilled is left behind and can compensate (by using non-premix, which is naturally harder to find!).

Of course, only distilled water should be used as extender.

The above is the executive summary of several hundred forum posts and hundreds of pages of anti-freeze information sheets and web sites... things are getting way out of hand in complexity, I seem to spend much longer figuring out what to do, than in actually doing it. Sometimes I figure out what to do and don't have time to do whatever it is!

 

[foggy1111]

On the issue regarding water!

I have been saving water from my de-humidifier in plastic jugs for the last few years and have used this water for all of my car needs.

I use it in the radiators, car/truck batteries, and also the windshield washer bottle. I'm sure its not really what some would call DISTILLED water, but it has worked for me for quite a few years and I don't get any of the mineralization issues that come from tap water. I'm certainly no chemist, but in my mind if I'm paying for the electric to take the dampness out of the air in my basement why not use the result. How many minerals or other contaminates could there be in the air of my basement??????

Frank

Yeah.....you may be low on minerals from that basement water.....but now you gotta worry about RADON in your tractor. LOL

 

[sweep]

Yeah.....you may be low on minerals from that basement water.....but now you gotta worry about RADON in your tractor. LOL

The container in my dehumidifier looks pretty slimey after a year or two. I'm not pouring that in my tractor even though the water looks clean.

I'll stick with the distilled water.

 

[Soundguy]

I'll bet a chip of a pool chlorine tablet droppe in there once a month would help with that slimey problem1

soundguy

 

[DieselPower]

That's kind of what I do. I put a couple drops of liquid laundry bleach in the tank every month to keep the slimey critters at bay.

 

[frank_f15]

WLL the chlorine or bleach have any adverse efect on anything?

 

[LRH]

WLL the chlorine or bleach have any adverse efect on anything?

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In a humidifier tank ... no., and the bleach in the water mixture will break down the longer it is exposed to sunlight and air, but I wouldn't use it in a modern cooling system except in an emergency.

 

[LRH]

I have in the past used regular green ethylene glycol concentrate at ~50-50 with just a touch of 4056 NAPAKool SCA in all the diesels, but this spring, all the water cooled vehicles will be flushed and switched to the G05 formulation, with the diesels getting a small shot of the SCA if and when the test strips indicate.

 

[Soundguy]

WLL the chlorine or bleach have any adverse efect on anything?

remember.. bleach come sin a plastic jug that is probably very similar tot he plastic hlding tank on that dehumidifier..

soundguy