alank2

Hi,

The first time I opened it, it looked like someone ran undilited antifreeze in it.

I've been on a mission to flush out the old fluid and replace it with new. I didn't want to cut a hose to put the flush T kit on it, so I've been dumping the radiator, refilling with straight water, warming it up so the water would mix with what is in the engine, letting it get cold, and then repeating this process.

It took a long time (5 or 6 cycles of this) to get the water to start looking clear to where I could see the bottom of the pail. Once it started to go clearish though it was looking pretty good.

I changed the thermostat which as it turned out wasn't too hard. What I noticed however in the last couple of dumps (I've been putting in distilled water instead of tap for the last 3 dumps) is that the water now looks rust colored.

Did I make a mistake doing this over a couple of weeks instead of all at once?

Did I likely cause what I hope is harmless surface rust or have I created a bigger issue?

I figured I'd stop messing around with it (I was going to dump/fill it a couple more times to make the distilled to tap water ratio higher) and I put some antifreeze in it this afternoon and let it warm up to mix.

Thanks,

Alan

bikeman

No, it just sounds like there's more to flush out. I like to remove the thermostat, put housing back on, remove rad cap, place hose in rad and open rad drain, turn hose on and run the car. Without the thermostat everything flows easily and it's faster to flush out. Then mix 50/50 distilled water and coolant. BTW there's nothing wrong with the inline "T", I've used them and never had any issues with leaking.

PapaCap

And to vamp on that, have you called any radiator shops to see how much it would cost to get your radiator rodded out? If it's inexpensive, they can clean all the crud that has accumulated in there, which gives your radiator much better flow and cooling capacity. I figure if you already have it drained, another 15 minutes of labor and the radiator could be tip-top. But it may be costly. I haven't had mine done in years, but from what I remember, it was pretty cheap.

pc