I wonder if old antifreeze....

BTJustice said:

...................I plan on using John Deere coolant next weekend in a 2003 S-10 and a 2004 Blazer which both have Dex-Cool in them. I later plan on using it in my 1998 Mustang GT. John Deere Green G-05 is a lot easier to see than Ford Gold G-05.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, I have to do my GF's 99 Blazer yet and my 98 Firebird, I "was" going to use that dex-cool as I wasn't aware of the problems with it. When I checked the cap in the Bird last week it was full of that crap, I just bought this car on the cheap a few weeks ago. My 91 Chevy pickup took an hour of flushing this summer to get all that crap out of it, by dumb luck it turns out now, I refilled with the regular green, TG. Did my 68 coupe with the green also, the internal block and radiator are like new on that car and plan on keeping it that way.

Gonna read thru your links later, good posts

BTJustice, A few questions for you or others that know.

What would you use to flush out your system of the Dex-Cool (and its rust/sludge) before adding the G-05?

We have 4 GMs here and it was Prestone that I put in my Chevy Pickup and Stang this summer so now 5 vehicle have to get done

First my fully stock 68 Stang, use IAT coolant or will the HOAT G-05 be OK to use, I'd be more than happy to pay more for the G-05 if it can go in that system?

Does the demineralized 50/50 mix really make that much difference than my tap water as a dilution with the undiluted G-05?

My FireBird is up on blocks so I can't do an additive and drive it for hours to flush that one at the moment, that one is the worst.

Are these auto store flushes OK or should a pro shop do it?

Great reply to what started out a simple question, I was still under the impression there were only two types of anti freeze, regular green and colored for engines containing aluminum parts etc... .

Sorry for the delay. I have been doing Dex-Cool to John Deere Cool-Gard conversions for a few GM vehicles.

I use these directions when doing coolant changes.

Coolant Change Guide For Neglected & Converted Cooling Systems

Coolant Change Guide For Clean Cooling Systems

G-05 will work perfectly fine in any cooling system that used the old green stuff. I personally like John Deere Cool-Gard which is a G-05 formulation. It even has SCA in it for diesel engines. It is safe for gasoline engines. John Deere recommends Cool-Gard for all its equipment going back decades ago. It's good stuff!

City water usually contains haloacetic acids, trihalomethanes, chlorine, barium, chromium, fluoride, nitrate, selenium, and sodium. Well water has even more crap in it. This is why deposits and scale form in cooling systems. USE DISTILLED WATER!!!

Following the directions above for neglected cooling systems, you could just let the Firebird idle on the blocks if it is safe to do so. If not, wait until you can drive it.

The places that do coolant changes usually use a coolant exchange machine which gets most of the old coolant out then replaces it with new coolant. These machines can only get about 80-85% of the old coolant out of the cooling system. They typically don't clean out the cooling system. They just replace old coolant with new coolant. Using the directions above will get damn near all of the old coolant out and clean the cooling system. A lot of folks whot had GM vehicles that had shops/dealerships convert them from Dex-Cool to the old green stuff had machines such as these do it. With 15-20% of the old Dex-Cool still in the cooling system, it is easy to see why there was still red crap showing up in the cooling system. I also seriously doubt these places use distilled water.

Regular green is disappearing from store shelves. Eventually it will be gone. Why stock a coolant that only lasts 3 years/36,000 miles and has a rather low shelf life when there are replacements such as G-05 that lasts 5 years/100,000 miles and have longer shelf lives? It's all about shelf space.

A question on distilled water.

I read somewhere (maybe it was here) that if you have alum. componants on the engine that it was better to use "soft" water instead.

If I remember right, distilling water removes ions from the water and causes the alum in the engine to corrode faster.

Soft water still has all the additives in it any source of municipal water has. The additives in tap water cause scale to form.

Distilled water is better. Remember, it bonds to the crap still left in the cooling system during flushing. Now if you ran distilled water only without mixing it with coolant, it would be corrosive to any metal in the cooling system. That's the nature of water and is one of the reasons why you don't want to run just water in your cooling system for extended periods of time. This is really the whole point of coolant. It makes the water better so it can have a much lower freeze temperature and a much higher boil temperature and also protect the metal.

Distilled water gets its missing ions from the coolant which is why they mix so well together. Remember that distilled water has none of the crap that tap water has added to it. Look at the label of any pre-mixed coolant on the store shelf. It will say it is mixed with distilled or de-ionized or de-mineralized water.

Free ions are what allows electrolytic corrosion to occur, but simple distilled water is not the same as distilled and deionized water. It's still the best thing cheaply available compared to faucet water. Softened water has mineral salts in it and I wouldn't want that nor "hard" water anywhere near my cooling system.

Ever tried dissolving metal stuff with salt water and a battery? It's kinda fun, but not as much fun as using sulfuric acid.

Water Types

About 90% of U.S. water is hard. Most water is Europe is very hard since it has a higher mineral content than water in the U.S. That's why European and U.S. auto makers like to use a silicate-based HOAT coolant.

I am not sure why some Asian auto makers use phosphate-based HOAT coolant. Perhaps Asian water is softer than European and U.S. water ?

Here are a few Wikipedia articles about water...

Distilled Water
Deionized Water
Hard Water
Soft Water

Most of the pre-mixed 50/50 coolant sold in stores for topping off cooling systems use deionized water. Deionized water is cheaper to make than distilled water. I never use it. Distilled water is more pure than deionized water. I make my own pre-mixed coolant with distilled water which gives me my preferred 55-60% coolant to 40-45% distilled water ratio .

Wal-Mart's purple-label distilled water is made through reverse osmosis, distillation, microfiltration, and ozonation. It is very good distilled water.

Distilled water is preferred for automotive cooling systems. It would be nice if all auto makers used silicate-based HOAT coolant and distilled water. No more need to try to guess the right coolant for different vehicles . A lot of auto makers are starting to do just that. For diesel and heavy-duty applications, they add SCA to the silicate-based HOAT coolant.

I use John Deere Cool-Gard (silicate-based HOAT coolant) and Wal-Mart's purple-label distilled water in my 1998 Ford Mustang GT. I also use this combination in a 2003 Chevrolet S-10 and a 2004 Chevrolet Blazer both with 4.3L V-6 engines my parents own. I will soon be using this combination in a 1998 Chevrolet Lumina, a 1999 Ford F-150, 2007 Dodge Caliber, and several other vehicles for my friends and other family members next year. That should be about 30+ vehicles total .