Thread: About how much for a new coolant system?

Backflush the heatercore and that's about everything covered.

The brown sludge was the dexcool coolant. Likely you never serviced it and it came in contact with lots of oxygen/air at some point and cause the reaction to take place. Dexcool and air in the cooling system do not like each other and thus the sludge.

I would change over to universal green/yellow coolant when you do this work.

its not the cost of a new core, its the job to swap it, 3-4 hrs easy. just flush it. same with the rad, flush it out its fine.

Have fun changing it if you really think you have to swap it.

I've done coolant flushes on some nasty cars before and using a hose to backflush the heatercore both ways has always worked for me. If it's not leaking, it's not worth replacing.

buy some prestone flush, let it sit int he rad and core for a day. if the rad is out of the car now, if its ion still, run the flush int he whole system,


then.

how to flush coolant.

remove the t stat, put the t stat housing back on, take the upper hose off the radiator, then push it down to the ground to a bucket or let it fly.

get your garden hose out, put it in the rad turn it on, then fire up the car, let it run till clear water pumps out the top hose.

then turn the hose off, run the car till no more water comes out the upper hose. then turn it off.

put your t stat back in, with new gasket, the upper hose back on.



now take 1 gallon of full strength green antifreeze, not the 50/50 crap. ( parts store cheap green is fine to use) dump the whole gallon in the radiator, fire up the car, fill the rad with hose water till its full. top as needed till its ready to be bled of air. it will burp and take coolant as the water in the block warms up the t stat opens up for a few seconds till cold coolant hits it and it shuts again.

now to bleed the air out, let it idle rad cap off till the fans turn on, (when the fans are on the temp is over 195 deg, the t stat is wide open) then open the bleeder screw on top the t stat housing a few turns till a steady stream of coolant comes out the hole, shut the screw, top off the rad. cap it.

done.

Garden hose is fine. Distilled is preferred as there are no impurities. But hose water is good for flushing.

as long as it flows coolant or water its fine, you'll get brown boogers for a while, its all stuck inside the engine too. takes time and a flush once a year for a few years.

mine quit the boogers and slime after 3 years of running green and a few flushes.

Originally Posted by steelholder

ive heard using this kind of water is bad. Im so paranoid with this ill probably be using holy water.. Di or distilled will do

ive been running nothing but hose water since the 80's, never had a issue.

thats what old ass dex coolant looks like...pure crap. and the brown slime.

With regular coolant like dexcool or green/yellow coolant, regular water is alright.

If you were using some super special volkswagon/audi or BMW and mercedes coolant, then distilled coolant is the only stuff you can use. That blue coolant in some mercedes cars is some high dollar stuff and the motors and parts alone are 3-5x the cost of ours.