Engine Installation - headers & transmission

[Sean D 31]

22 hours ago, barnett468 said:

In so california, i use 20% green anti freeze (ethylene glycol), 1.5 times the recommended amount of DEI radiator relief, and the rest water purified by reverse osmosis.

How often do you have to change the fluids using this method? Also why not use distilled water?

[GypsyR 32]

Because they tend to do odd things in California? Most OEM's are using deionized water these days. Don't think you get that by reverse osmosis. Distilled tends to do OK by us rednecks.

Actually I've been looking into using the Asian style "phosphate" coolant. It's an easy way to get away from the old green "silicate" coolant and gain some long term durability. Like five year/100K mile durability. Silicates also tend to "fall out" in cars that sit for long periods of time. A big plus is you can backyard flush your cooling system and change over to it. Unlike if you wanted to go to an "extended life" Dex Cool type coolant where you REALLY want to flush everything out of the cooling system because every bit of the old silicate stuff left in there will react with the new coolant and make snot-like deposits that settle pretty much exactly where you don't want them. No such issue with the Asian stuff. Plus Zerex makes a nice blue version you can tell yourself is Ford blue. Leaks or service is no issue, more is available at any parts store at about the same price as the rest. Some of the Toyota specific stuff is pink and makes a nasty mud brown color when mixed with green, be careful of that. 

Second on my list might be a propylene glycol like "Sierra". I don't see a whole lot more benefit for the money for me so I quit looking into that. It's said to even better for sitting is rated at up to 150K miles if you like to put off servicing your cooling system.

We have a lot of cars and for me I'm thinking the blue Zerex would be something I could keep and service all of them with it. If I can ever get my wife to sell that silly Buick she likes so much. Dex Cool isn't inherently bad (about all new Fords are using it), but aside from the mixing problems some people are seeing cavitation issues in antique water pumps with it. Cavitation makes me unhappy. Looking at all the white crunchy crap in the bottom of old radiators that is silicate that has settled out of old green coolant also makes me unhappy. And is basically what set me on a quest for something better, that and plugged up heater cores. Ask any radiator guy. The Asian radiators that run the correct coolant don't have all that crud in them and don't need "rodding out" because that type stuff just isn't in there. 

Evans I wouldn't use if you gave it to me. A solution looking for a problem if you ask me. Might be really good in museum cars though. 

I've never lived where running simply water with some additive was an option so offer no opinion on that.

[1969_Mach1 333]

I simply use a 50/50 mix of distilled water and green anti-freeze.  Ideally you want deionized water.  But I don't know where to buy that.  So, distilled water is just fine.  Distilled water contains less salt than water filter by reverse osmosis.

I am guessing the premix 50/50 anti freeze uses some type of filtered, reverse osmosis filtered, distilled, or deionized water.  Anybody here have any knowledge of that?

[barnett468 418]

15 hours ago, Sean D said:

Also why not use distilled water?

because some of us in california tend to do odd things like trying to use what might be the best overall option for a given situation?

you can certainly use distilled water as well but some of the coolant additive mfg's say it is chemically imbalanced so it uses up the additives in the coolant/coolant additive faster than deionized water. that being said, even so, the distilled water is certainly not going to cause any problems. hell, you could probably use bud lite instead of water and it still wouldn't cause a problem. imo, getting water with a low mineral count is the most important thing. i would be hesitant to use "soft" water because the softening process does add salt to the water. One county test showed that softening their water added 165 mg per liter. Their municipal water from one of their underground reservoirs had 35 mg per liter. All municipal drinking water has salt in it.

https://www.publichealthmdc.com/documents/SodiumDrinkingWater.pdf

as far as the silicates falling out of the green antifreeze, it is not something that causes a problem in an old school engine although it can leave a sediment, however, that is the antifreeze that was used for a bazillion years before all these specialty/botique antifreezes came out. this is not to say that the old green coolant is by far the best coolant to use, however, it has worked in hundreds of millions of cars without plugging up the systems or causing overheating problems for a bazilion years. 

here is some interesting reading about which water these people think is best to use and why, HOWEVER, their comment claiming that running hard water through a water softener does not add salt to the water is absolutely wrong.

http://www.onallcylinders.com/2016/09/09/coolant-additive-guide/

 

[barnett468 418]

47 minutes ago, 1969_Mach1 said:

Distilled water contains less salt than water filter by reverse osmosis.

 

Both DASANI and Aquafina drinking water are filtered by reverse osmosis and contain zero salt. If you find bottled drinking water that has salt in it, it was most likely added for flavor and/or nutritional value to replace the salt the reverse osmosis process removed or they may just have used a crummy filter when they filtered it. I just wouldn't know for certain but you certainly could call the mfg and ask.

http://thewholetruth.org/Res_WP_RO_FAQ.asp

"The initial application of the reverse osmosis process was removal of salt (desalinization) from sea water for use as drinking water aboard naval vessels. This application has been expanded to include large, land-based facilities supporting entire communities. This may prove to be very beneficial to someone on a low sodium diet.'

[Sean D 31]

14 hours ago, barnett468 said:

Both DASANI and Aquafina drinking water are filtered by reverse osmosis and contain zero salt. If you find bottled drinking water that has salt in it, it was most likely added for flavor and/or nutritional value to replace the salt the reverse osmosis process removed or they may just have used a crummy filter when they filtered it. I just wouldn't know for certain but you certainly could call the mfg and ask.

http://thewholetruth.org/Res_WP_RO_FAQ.asp

"The initial application of the reverse osmosis process was removal of salt (desalinization) from sea water for use as drinking water aboard naval vessels. This application has been expanded to include large, land-based facilities supporting entire communities. This may prove to be very beneficial to someone on a low sodium diet.'

So, you can use Dasani or Aquafina drinking water instead of distilled, without any problems? I like this idea as I ALWAYS have a bunch in the house, garage, and most of the time vehicles.

[barnett468 418]

29 minutes ago, Sean D said:

So, you can use Dasani or Aquafina drinking water instead of distilled, without any problems? I like this idea as I ALWAYS have a bunch in the house, garage, and most of the time vehicles.

lol, absolutely, and Dasani is what I use, however, as I mentioned, there is certainly nothing "wrong" with distilled or purified water etc. It's really like splitting hairs from my research. Bazillions of people simply used tap water when straight ethylene glycol based anti freeze was all that was available and their engines ran for 100,000 miles with no rust build up in them providing they periodically changed their coolant.

The glycol itself does not break down, the additives they put in it just get used up so you could simply add a little coolant additive every year or so if you wanted to simply refortify it, however, I have no idea how much should be added because I have no idea how fast it gets used up, but I have some newer cars with 50/50 coolant that I have not changed in over 8 years and never added additive to, and the coolant still looks bright green with zero sign of rust color in all of them.