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| Thread ID: 136817 | 2014-04-17 03:42:00 | Car coolant | Renmoo (66) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 1372917 | 2014-04-18 09:05:00 | I remember the good old days when all I ever used was tap water - in cars with over 200,000 miles on the oddometer :) These days of course something would probably corrode and break if you went without it. I'll second the comments above, I too have read that it's not a good Idea to mix coolant types and that some combinations can cause the liquid to turn into a gel. If you don't know what's in your car either flush it and replace or just add water in the interim until you find out - which will dilute the coolant and reduce it's anti-corrosive properties but at least won't react. Also the colour alone is not a good enough indicator, different manufacturers use different colours and there is no universal colour scheme to tell you what the coolant is. You need to read what the active ingredients are and see if they are the same. |
dugimodo (138) | ||
| 1372918 | 2014-04-18 19:47:00 | I remember the good old days when all I ever used was tap water - in cars with over 200,000 miles on the oddometer :) These days of course something would probably corrode and break if you went without it. . Really? I remember the good old days too.......the engines back then didn't last anywhere near as long as modern japanese motors. They were cast iron though.....you could get away with a bit more over heating than you can now - but things still corroded, a lot more in fact. |
pctek (84) | ||
| 1372919 | 2014-04-18 21:38:00 | Yeah I wasn't really trying to say anything about how older cars compared in terms of corrosion, just that tap water worked and the cars still lasted a decent amount of time. My cars tended to be old wrecks I didn't really expect to last the long term though, never needed oil changes to my mind for example because I had to add a litre every week or so anyway. In a pinch water does the trick, if you worry about the long term effects then don't use it without some form of anti-corrosive. |
dugimodo (138) | ||
| 1372920 | 2014-04-18 23:49:00 | Use to remember that changing plugs on Cortina's would take about 5 minutes now have a Falcon Turbo and took about 2 hours having to remove the induction system,top cover,individual coils and having the correct combination of drives and universals,thank god they get changed every 100,000km | Lawrence (2987) | ||
| 1372921 | 2014-04-18 23:57:00 | Could do a valve grind on a Morrie before breakfast! Lube every 500 miles and oil change every 1000. When did you last have a cylinder head de-carbonized? | Richard (739) | ||
| 1372922 | 2014-04-19 04:06:00 | Well mainly the antifreeze is an anti-corrosion thing - unless you live in areas with very cold winters. Having lost a core plug in one of my cars, I highly recommend antifreeze even if you don't. Tap water doesn't help with that.... |
pctek (84) | ||
| 1372923 | 2014-04-19 06:04:00 | Anti freeze does three things it helps prevents corrosion especially in ally engine blocks, manifolds or heads, it raises the boiling point a bit and it even stops the block freezing necessary in the South Island and central plateau NI. Its down side is it makes the motor run hotter this is because pure water transfers the heat away better than the thicker antifreeze mixture. On my microlight I used to use 100% anti freeze in winter and 50 50 in summer the radiator was more than up to keeping it cool in fact it did a too good a job even with a thermostat and the engine could cold seize which was was when you come down from quite high at idle then slammed the throttle open to clear something on approach to the strip. So it was critical to monitor the water temp on descent and beep it up and control descent with elevator. We could have another post about changing frost plugs in bastard places. I had a Triumph 2.5s had to cut holes in the floor of the car to get at some the Standard clowns had put at the rear of the block |
prefect (6291) | ||
| 1372924 | 2014-04-19 07:41:00 | Strictly, anti-freeze (typically ethelene glycol or propylene glycol) has no anti-corrosive properties as far as metals go. It is typically not used alone in auto engines, but in conjunction with anti-corrosive additives. So what you buy as anti-freeze at SCA or Repco is a mix of antifreeze and corrosion inhibitor. If you source plain glycol from other sources, it will work as anti-freeze, but won't inhibit corrosion. | wuppo (41) | ||
| 1372925 | 2014-04-25 06:18:00 | i would drain and flush the old coolant out. more than likely its well overdue for coolant change. |
tweak'e (69) | ||
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