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manyroads, I don't understand the term Dex-crap. Most coolants are said to be good for apx 2 years, but that is in use most of the time, but in longer periods of storage with well used coolant the contaminates still can build and worse sink to be come a solid mass. Not rock solid maybe, but enough to not flow.
Maybe something like a joint compound bucket left out in weather, with clean water. Things get in there and grow. In several months time there is scum on the bucket walls that won't come clean with a garden hose nozzel, It takes a sponge right? That kind of solid.
New types of coolant are said to be good for 55,000 miles and or 5 years. That ight be debatable, but it might be true. I plan to give it a try in my 2006 Kawi Nomad MC, which holds just 2.5 quarts.
Not very much, and a hard place for coollant to live, since it IS 2.5 qts.
The water pump seal on this bike is super sensitve to silicates, which is often known to be in coolants and this system must have 0 silicates. I found a coolant that meets that spec and also has no borates.
But in 2 years time or less I am sure going to drain that system and see its condition, test it with a hydrometer and filter it to tell if I would be willing to re-use it.
A bike engine as i said is a hard place for coolant to do well as the heating cooling is intence, but so are modern cars with the smallest possible raditor and AC evaporators ahead of the rad, stealing air flow, often combine with auto tranny coolers in the rad itself.
If your water pump seal failed, and the coolant was running out the relief hole, which proves the seal was bad, then well maybe in part it was due to contaminated coolant. it could be bad bushings a kind of bearing common to water pumps, and or a defective shaft, and even too tight belt tentsion.
To have known better asking at that time should have happened. If I had done the job, I could better tell, but I didn't. I don't know year make model, which engine how many hours, miles, and so on.
Very minor head gasket leaks and other assorted oils can contaminate cooling system as well as disimilar metals. Alloy engines begin to start being earth pretty fast. That white oxide on them most anyone can see is also going on inside the engine and in particular in the cooling system. Pretty hard to get in there with a tooth brush eh?
I am no chemist, but I have seen alloy T stat housings with the upper rad hose corrod to powder dust and it looks like a Norway Rat ate the metal up, so I can only say i suspect something becomes acid.
Common tool steel as graded bolts hold the cly head in place and the water jacket on some cars runs right against that type of metal in alloy engines. The sensors are another series of metal, usually more 'noble'. The head and block may both be alloy, but different alloy, and then the water pump has that bronze bushing, assorted steel springs usualy junk but still a spring, the T stat isyet another metal, and then that heater core and valving, plus it's seals. Lots and lots of unlike metals.
There are more or less universal zincs you can swim in the rad, which will be eatten away first, and for some cars it is a good idea to have one. That is a part that will take the beating to save other parts.
"Dex-crap" is a nickname used by people like myself who are not fans of GM's extended life coolant, Dexcool. It has been a source of problems for GM because it tends to gunk up engines. Why they continue to use this stuff in their cars is beyond me.
manyroads "Dang, you must hardly ever take that car out of the garage! My car is 4yrs, 8 mos old and has 71K miles on it (it had 28K when I bought it 3 yrs ago)."
The car was one of my Dad's. He has others, so the Neon was only driven here and there. I am driving it as my main car now, and have already put on a few thousand miles. The car is really pretty much like new.
If the antifreeze is ethyl glycol based(green) you can tell by looking at it and touching it if it's still good.
If feels a little oily it's still lubricating. If it's still green and not discolored it's not contaminated and if your car runs in the proper temperature range it's still helping with the cooling.
Oil companies are the ones that generally make up the fluid change intervals on cars not the car manufacturers. The intervals are usually set by fluid capacity. The more it holds the less you have to change it.
Oil companies and car makers are all about profit, nothing wrong with that, but in pursuit of that profit they tend to be a little underhanded and exaggerate things.
Antifreeze and oil has improved remarkably over the years but the fluid change intervals stay the same. It's all about profit.
If the antifreeze is ethyl glycol based(green) you can tell by looking at it and touching it if it's still good.
If feels a little oily it's still lubricating. If it's still green and not discolored it's not contaminated and if your car runs in the proper temperature range it's still helping with the cooling.
Oil companies are the ones that generally make up the fluid change intervals on cars not the car manufacturers. The intervals are usually set by fluid capacity. The more it holds the less you have to change it.
Oil companies and car makers are all about profit, nothing wrong with that, but in pursuit of that profit they tend to be a little underhanded and exaggerate things.
Antifreeze and oil has improved remarkably over the years but the fluid change intervals stay the same. It's all about profit.
Pretty much I agree, but to do nothing and just assume is as bad. I have found cars, rather lets say they found me. Hot runing cars with clogged rads due to no flushings and changes on time. Everyone else has done what they could and yet the problems are not solved.
I tend to get these after flusings and new coolant with a new T stat.
I listen, and then go check the rad for cold spots which I find and know that read is clogged tight down low and running at far less than 100%.
The older all copper rads could be taken apart with some difficulty since the top cover or side cover, which ever the case may be had to come off and when that happens it stresses the metal, and it always distorts in a curve.
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