Ratio of DCA in coolant. Is my math correct & other coolant questions

[sweep]

Hello
I have a 2006 NH TC45A tractor-parent bore engine. I just changed the antifreeze with low silicate permanent type antifreeze (along with distilled water)per the owners manual and I want to add the FW-15 NH conditioner.

It says to use a 5% ratio of conditioner to total amount of coolant. My calculation is I need 13.44 oz of conditioner. Total cooling system holds 8.40 quarts x 32 oz to a qt =268.80 oz x .05% = 13.44 oz.

Just wanted to make sure my math is correct.

I only put about 60 hours per year on my tractor. Is it still needed to change the antifreeze every year as per the owners manual? I was thinking every other year due to the low usage.

Thanks for your help.
Sweep

 

[Mighty Dodge]

Yup, your math's correct. I change the coolant in my JD every other year. I bought JD coolant additive. It recommends two different ratio's depending on whether you change the coolant every year or every other year. Since you only put 60hrs/year you could probably change it every other year....but it's cheap insurance to do it per the mfg recommendations.

M.D.

 

[cowpie1]

Or... you could use what the Technology and Maintenance Council is recommending now for diesel engines.... ELC coolant. Not the Dexcool crap. Something like Cat EC-1, Shell Rotella ELC, etc. It is now the hands down recommended coolant for most diesel applications and requires NO addtitional SCA's and is good for 5 years with only 1 application of extender (no math required). Been using this type of coolant now in the Cummins in my semi for 450,000 miles, my Jeep Liberty diesel, and will soon be switching my NH TC33DA over from the factory fill. It is especially beneficial for wet sleeve cylinder protection against cavitation and aluminum components. Far better than the SCA required red coolant and, of course, the green coolants. This newer coolant is HOAT.

 

[WTA]

The new diesel coolants are good stuff. I use the one from the cat dealer myself in everything. Also I never recommended adding dca to anything without testing it first. You can over do it. It's simple to test the coolant with test strips available from nearly every truck dealer out there. They test for freeze protection level and reserve alkalinity units. Depending on the color of the test strip you will know exactly how much dca to add.

Remember too alkaline is just as bad as too acidic. The purpose of the dca additive is to keep a happy medium. Also some manufacturers put anti foaming additives in it and other stuff to prevent cavitation. That was a problem with powerstroke engines for a while.

I recommend getting the premixed antifreeze also. Most distilled water is not distilled all that great. Having made probably several BILLION gallons of distilled water as an engineer in the navy during my career I know a thing or two about water. I used to buy distilled water from the store to mix with my antifreeze and after a couple years later when my radiator plugged I tested the hardness on a fresh gallon jug. They must have just filtered regular old well water was the best I could tell. It sure wasn't distilled.

Now I catch the water coming off my evaporator in the house for when I need distilled water. It's as clean as it gets.