Antifreeze Questions

[Roy_W]

With the arrival of end the summer and the begining of a new glacier period I have some questions concerning new coolant.

1 : What is the importance of using distilled water rather than tapwater ?

2 : Is there a better alternative to the 50/50 solution, I would presume it would depend on the extremes, but lets say for interest that -10 degrees is quite common here in the winter. Would there be any advantage to using a 70/30 solution ( 70% being the antifreeze ).

3 : How can I clean the green colour from the interieur of the collant reservoir. It looks crap and and makes it difficult to see the current level.

4 : I saw in another thread http://www.xrv.org.uk/phpBB2/viewtop...hlight=coolant
that only coollant suitable for "Aluminimum" engines should be used. Sh**
I didnt even know that it existed. Is there a negative aspect to using normal antifreeze.

Cheers Roy

[djadams]

1 - depends how hard the water in your area is. If your tea has a scum on it and your kettle looks like it's hewn from the living rock, you need to use distilled water. Otherwise, the inside of your engine will look like the inside of your kettle, and that prevents it cooling properly (the limescale is an insulater, keeping the metal hot).

2 - depends on the brand of the antifreeze. Go by the recommendations on the side of the can, but a stronger solution will also give you longer lasting internal corrosion protection, (corrosion will also insulate like the limescale above).

3 - No idea mate. Never bothered me.

4 - Yep, but fret ye not, most is suitable for aluminium engines these days, as most modern car engines at least have ally heads. Check the side of the container, or phone up the manufacturer to check suitability

As an aside, I always recommend doing a coolant flush with a system cleaner before refilling it - gets rid of any scale or corrosion that's formed, and helps the new stuff work as well as possible.

HTH,
dan, your friendly resident engine developer...

[djadams]

PS - key thing to note is that you cannot mix the traditional glycol based antifreeze (usu blue or green) with OAT (organic acid technology) stuff, (usu pinky orange). Apparently the two can react and make a sludge that gums everything up. The OAT stuff lasts longer though - typically five years rather than two.

[GSPD750]

A 50/50 premix should be sufficient. The Prestone Premix 50/50 I use is 50% glycol and 50% demineralized water.
It's good to -37 celsius...and it can go down to -25 in my garage here in Canada.
No advantage using 70/30 if you use premix.

Or you can mix your own 50/50 (Honda's recommendation)
providing you use distilled water.

[Roy_W]

As an aside, I always recommend doing a coolant flush with a system cleaner before refilling it - gets rid of any scale or corrosion that's formed, and helps the new stuff work as well as possible.

HTH,
dan, your friendly resident engine developer...

I never thought about the coolant flush, it might even be good for cleaning the reservoir, glad you mentionned it, I will give it bash this weekend

Cheers

[BlindPugh]

Distilled water - yes and mix as per Honda Manual - change coolant every two years and usually flush through with hose pipe, never found any sludge so it is either baked hard or the coolant mix is doing the job.