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xzzy posted:The makers of dexcool were so smart they made it the color of rust so you can't use a visual inspection to decide if your coolant system is falling apart. When I was a kid a few decades ago it was a treat for your parents to take you to McDonalds. You could order "Orange drink" and yes that is it what it was called. To be honest, McDonald's orange drink is probably more effective than Dexcool for numerous reasons yet has the same exact color and hue.
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Dec 26, 2017 18:16
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C-Bangin' it 
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CommieGIR posted:Of my 5 Audis, many pushing 31 years of age, I've only had one radiator fail due to the plastic endcap cracking because the fan failed. I change yearly by draining half the coolant and refilling. Oh, I suppose there's nothing wrong with it if you have the time and money. I just think that it's far enough past the intersection of what you put in vs what you get out that I wouldn't advise it for most people. I have a few of nice guns that I've "pre-inherited" from my dad's collection over the years and I do a lot more care and cleaning with those than most shooters, but I'll admit it's also a lot more than I need to do.
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Dec 26, 2017 19:19
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TrueChaos posted:What kind of process? Also lol of they were using RO perm for the rinse step (I'm assuming in some kind of media filter, carbon / mmf), what a waste of energy. The water recycling system is for a plating line but they opened it to a spray pretreatment for a ecoat/powder line. There's a big bunch of valves for directing city water to both lines and a line for RO to the plating line but there was also supposed to be a new section to the paint pretreat so we could use the RO water selectively into the non-rinse stages. The installers apparently didn't feel like running additional lines and said just being able to switch the entire line's water feed from city to RO was close enough. I would have rather had an unconnected stub than that since there's already a dedicated 40gpm RO treating city water that feeds the ecoat stuff and can fill those tanks in pretreat as well so tying the new recycling system to that line at all was just a minor convenience.
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Dec 26, 2017 19:40
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glynnenstein posted:Oh, I suppose there's nothing wrong with it if you have the time and money. I just think that it's far enough past the intersection of what you put in vs what you get out that I wouldn't advise it for most people. I was going to say that it's like $25 a year to change coolant, and you don't even need a wrench, but it costs anywhere between $50-$150 at a shop. I can completely understand why people don't want to "waste" their money on it
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Dec 26, 2017 20:07
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The Door Frame posted:I was going to say that it's like $25 a year to change coolant, and you don't even need a wrench, but it costs anywhere between $50-$150 at a shop. I can completely understand why people don't want to "waste" their money on it The only thing that’s more expensive than maintenance is not doing it.
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Dec 26, 2017 20:08
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InitialDave posted:Not so much a horrible failure, but technically interesting; my dad killed a halfshaft in his Austin 7, so he's had to pull the axle apart, and the differential doesn't use bevel gears for the centre, it's an arrangement of spur gears, kind of like a Torsen B or Quaife without the LSD function: Huh, that's interesting.
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Dec 26, 2017 20:12
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MrYenko posted:The only thing that’s more expensive than maintenance is not doing it. I'll give you that, but excluding the unmitigated garbage that is Dexcool, are there any documented cases of vehicles following the factory intervals for antifreeze changes and still running into problems? My WJ only has a 30k interval (and rarely goes that long without having some other reason to dump the radiator anyway), but the CR-V just called for its first change just shy of 5 years and the antifreeze that came out is visibly indistinguishable from what went in. No sediment or anything, even after letting it settle for a week. I realize antifreeze can cause problems without looking lovely, but I'd expect some sort of particulate evidence of those problems. The other pain in the dick is that used antifreeze is not as easy to dispose of as used oil. None of the shops here want to take it and the city only accepts it four times a year.
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Dec 26, 2017 20:19
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MrYenko posted:The only thing that’s more expensive than maintenance is not doing it. BlackMK4 posted:Huh, that's interesting.
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Dec 26, 2017 20:22
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MrYenko posted:The only thing that’s more expensive than maintenance is not doing it. Tell that to someone paying $150 to do a coolant flush on their 98 Tercel. Or how many stories show up in the terrible car thread of people refusing to pay $1200 to change all 4 tires on their X5 after driving on a flat I'm 100% for regular maintenance, but it can be a hard sell to people with low value cars and those who don't understand how cars go. A lot of this stuff seems like a racket, and some of it totally is a racket
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Dec 26, 2017 20:24
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Also screw cars where you have to drain half the coolant, put half in, mix it up, drain half, put half in, mix it up, drain half, etc., because nobody at the factory thought it was cool to put a plug in for the block. Either that or I just don't do enough coolant changes to understand what I'm doing wrong.
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Dec 26, 2017 20:52
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CommieGIR posted:Regardless if you are using premixed, etc, you need to flush your coolant annually. It WILL gain a charge, and it WILL corrode your engine. Period. That doesn't change regardless of what water you use, it'll just happen faster with tap water than with purified water. Ok, that's neat.
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Dec 26, 2017 21:21
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Dave Inc. posted:Also screw cars where you have to drain half the coolant, put half in, mix it up, drain half, put half in, mix it up, drain half, etc., because nobody at the factory thought it was cool to put a plug in for the block. No one makes it easy. For an LT1 you need to remove both knock sensors out of the bottom of the bock (which is quite difficult) to effectively drain it all.
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Dec 26, 2017 22:15
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IOwnCalculus posted:I'll give you that, but excluding the unmitigated garbage that is Dexcool, are there any documented cases of vehicles following the factory intervals for antifreeze changes and still running into problems? My WJ only has a 30k interval (and rarely goes that long without having some other reason to dump the radiator anyway), but the CR-V just called for its first change just shy of 5 years and the antifreeze that came out is visibly indistinguishable from what went in. No sediment or anything, even after letting it settle for a week. I realize antifreeze can cause problems without looking lovely, but I'd expect some sort of particulate evidence of those problems. Just because we like to dog on Dexcool - I'd like to offer the below article as a counterpoint. Author does a nice job of concisely laying out the issues, and aligns with just about every Google on DexCool. http://ricksfreeautorepairadvice.com/is-dexcool-bad/ The only thing he misses on: He calls out the 3.1/3.4 engines correctly, but misses the 3.8. It's a good read and should stir interesting conversation.
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Dec 26, 2017 22:19
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Its also fun to note that dexcool is in fact the oe recommended coolant on current chryco vehicles, ford vehicles and of course gm stuff. Its actually pretty good stuff when the motor is designed for it. In fact when ford realized their G-05 coolant didn't meet mazda's requirements for the mazda 6 at the start of its production, they had to use dex cool for two years since it was the only domestically available coolant that could match mazda's long life coolant. They finally developed their own version, but yeah. It made finding out the coolant type for my car interesting.
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Dec 26, 2017 23:17
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Yeah, that's a good read. This is the problem that ended up costing my mom a pretty penny shortly before she traded in her '97 Suburban:quote:Other DexCool problems It had apparently developed some form of small cooling system leak - it never left anything on the ground - but was able to get enough air into the system that it sludged the gently caress out of the entire cooling system. I suppose it is a bit unfair that Dexcool gets blamed when the real problem was the engines / gaskets / cooling systems weren't truly ready for Dexcool. The '02 Trailblazer she replaced it with ran Dexcool for pretty much its entire life (and probably didn't get changed as often as it was supposed to) and I don't think* it ever developed any major leaks. *Literally the day before she traded it in, it developed a massive leak of some form of red fluid. Couldn't tell if it was coolant, ATF from the transmission, or ATF from the power steering. Made it to the dealer and no more fucks were given. This is also why I hate the color of Dexcool (too close to ATF) and G05 (pretty much looks clear). Fluid identification is much easier when coolant is either traditional radioactive green, or dark blue like Honda and a few other Asian manufacturers use. IOwnCalculus fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Dec 26, 2017 |
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Dec 26, 2017 23:17
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BlackMK4 posted:Huh, that's interesting. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around how it works. Goober Peas posted:Just because we like to dog on Dexcool - I'd like to offer the below article as a counterpoint. Author does a nice job of concisely laying out the issues, and aligns with just about every Google on DexCool. He also missed all the V8s and the 4.3. They also had the goddamned plastic-and-o-ring intake gaskets. Fuckers failed on my wife's 2000 Astro van. I just drained the oil, dumped uncontaminated used oil through to flush it a bit more (not running - just dumped it into the intake valley while the intake was off), drained that, and then changed the fresh oil like 2-3 days after doing the gasket job. It continued to run until we traded it in, with seemingly no ill effects. I'm sure that the water in the oil took some life off of the bearings, but apparently didn't destroy anything. Thankfully, Felpro made better replacement gaskets. It's a bit disconcerting to top up the coolant, then have the level keep dropping with no visible leaks. At which point a light goes on and you check the oil level - which has risen dramatically. Yay, chocolate and orange milkshake. edit: with regards to the rest of the article, gently caress the manufacturers for managing to make coolant yet another special goddamned snowflake fluid. Transmission fluid was bad enough. "Most engines take less than 2-gallons. Dealer coolant will cost an extra $10/gallon. Why risk engine, radiator, heater core, gasket, water pump, heater tubing, and seal failure to save a lousy $20?" Because some folks don't have that extra $20, they don't want to go to the dealer to get their special snowflake snake oil, and that's $20 on top of $30 for the universal stuff. $50 still isn't a lot in comparison to replacing a bunch of stuff, but you know how people are about maintenance costs. I'm a little worried about using the Prestone long-life in my Crown Vic, now, though. Darchangel fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Dec 27, 2017 |
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Dec 27, 2017 18:27
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Darchangel posted:I'm having trouble wrapping my head around how it works. You have a sun gear on each shaft, with longer planet gears around each. Now, if the planet gears were long enough to go all the way across both sun gears, it wouldn't work, both shafts would have to turn the same way. But put the planet gears extending far enough out that the left planet gears mesh only into the right ones - and not onto their opposing sun gears - and the effect is that it's geared to reverse direction with a 1:1 ratio, just as a "normal" bevel gear open differential. It's an exercise in doing the same job, just with a larger number of more simplistic components. The closest comparison is an LSD like a Torsen B, Quaife, or Truetrac, which is designed identically, save for having helical-cut gears rather than straight-cut spur gears: It's this helical form that provides the LSD function. 
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Dec 27, 2017 19:05
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Ah, that picture makes it much clearer. What I wasn't getting was that the planetary gears meshed with each other. I could see that they meshed with the sun gear on each axle, and had shafts that held them in the housing once it was bolted together, I just couldn't fathom how the housing didn't just rotate freely. That solves it. Thanks for the explanation - I hadn't gotten around to Googlinating it yet.
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Dec 27, 2017 20:25
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Toyotas factory coolants are the absolute bomb- their long life stuff was change every 2yrs/40K kms and my mates 80 series clocked up 420k kms the other day and its never had anything but Toyota red coolant at the specified intervals and the internals of the block are spotless. Their super long life is even more impressive- 4yrs/80k kms and the first change is at 180k kms.
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Dec 29, 2017 03:50
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Ferremit posted:Their super long life is even more impressive- 4yrs/80k kms and the first change is at 180k kms. If you say "megameters" it sounds like you drove to space.
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Dec 29, 2017 08:33
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Exit Strategy posted:If you say "megameters" it sounds like you drove to space. 
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Dec 29, 2017 08:56
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Darchangel posted:edit: with regards to the rest of the article, gently caress the manufacturers for managing to make coolant yet another special goddamned snowflake fluid. Transmission fluid was bad enough. Or, you know, they find out who the OEM is for the coolant (in Dexcool's case, I believe it's Prestone), and just drop $14 on a gallon of concentrate + $1 for a gallon of distilled water at Walmart. Prestone's Dexcool is the only one I've seen that actually has a GM logo, anyway, and I remember reading something on BITOG about Prestone being the OEM for it. I've always considered Prestone to be one of the better brands of coolant, personally, but maybe that's just brand loyalty (similar to how I refuse to use anything but Mobil 1 oil...)
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Dec 29, 2017 09:14
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Honestly, most domestics take G-05 or Dex Cool (outside of tesla at least). Its pretty easy to find both of those for relatively cheap. Even easier, almost every domestic consumer vehicle from 2013+ is just dexcool which is readily available and pretty cheap. The only exception I can pull off the top of my head is a 2013 dart a customer needed coolant for tonight. The specific chryco spec for the dart was some 5 digit one, the chryco spec for dexcool is something like ms-9726. More than likely one of the pentosin coolants we carry would have met it, but the customer was in a hurry and didn't have time for me to drag out the paper catalogs. Honestly, the only truely absurdly priced coolants are for your german brands, but you should know what you're getting into buying one of those.  Edit: Now if you want a serious headache, try taking in the fun thats the clusterfuck of coolants for the first generation mazda 6 and its ford related cousins. BITOG posted:I was surprised to learn that prior to the 2006 model year, North American Mazda6 vehicles were not equipped with a P-OAT coolant developed by CCI, the dominant Japanese coolant company. So I did some research. Unlike the Mazda3, Mazda MPV/5, Mazda MX-5 (Miata) Mazda RX-8, CX-7, and CX-9, the North American edition of the Mazda6 is built in Flat Rock MI by AutoAlliance International, a joint venture between Ford and Mazda that is operated by Ford. I'll stop before I make a post that make STR go god drat. I've done way too much digging into various coolants for vehicles for work, and thats before I get to the fun poo poo you see in heavy duty stuff. 
Elmnt80 fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Dec 29, 2017 |
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Dec 29, 2017 10:38
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Goober Peas posted:Just because we like to dog on Dexcool - I'd like to offer the below article as a counterpoint. Author does a nice job of concisely laying out the issues, and aligns with just about every Google on DexCool. I think the 3.8 might have been a different problem to do with the EGR pipe "cooking" the plastic around the upper IM gasket, which also caused a coolant leak but maybe wasn't due to any coolant interaction?
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Dec 29, 2017 11:03
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Cop Porn Popper posted:I'll stop before I make a post that make STR go god drat.  Throatwarbler posted:I think the 3.8 might have been a different problem to do with the EGR pipe "cooking" the plastic around the upper IM gasket, which also caused a coolant leak but maybe wasn't due to any coolant interaction? The 3.8 was prone to leaking LIM gaskets, just like the 3.1 and 3.4. Maybe not quite as often, but it's a very real issue. I'm so glad I have an engine that doesn't run coolant through the intake manifold... instead the bulk of the PCV system is controlled by an itty bitty hole in the intake, and when it clogs, it starts puking oil.  Also no EGR on mine, thank gently caress (instead they stuck 2 cats on the manual transmission version... mine somehow left the factory with 1 cat, though  )
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Dec 29, 2017 11:06
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Hate to distract from coolant chat but related to earlier broken wheel holding air chat. I smashed our car into the wall at RA backwards and out cheap wheels held up great. Leaving the whole quote because everyone loves carnage and  NitroSpazzz posted:Finally had some time to get the car on the lift and look over the damage. New plan is replace the bad sheet metal, replace wrecked poo poo and race the car next season. Only reason we're bothering with the body work is because we're going to be doing more WRL races and we feel they'd prefer the cars to not look like poo poo. There's a good chance all passenger bodywork will end up on my garage wall.
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Dec 29, 2017 11:45
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Yu-Gi-Ho! posted:Or, you know, they find out who the OEM is for the coolant (in Dexcool's case, I believe it's Prestone), and just drop $14 on a gallon of concentrate + $1 for a gallon of distilled water at Walmart. Prestone's Dexcool is the only one I've seen that actually has a GM logo, anyway, and I remember reading something on BITOG about Prestone being the OEM for it. I think I used the Prestone universal long life in my Crown Vic, since O'Reilly's didn't have the Ford-specific yellow stuff. Throatwarbler posted:I think the 3.8 might have been a different problem to do with the EGR pipe "cooking" the plastic around the upper IM gasket, which also caused a coolant leak but maybe wasn't due to any coolant interaction? This is correct. My brother's Bonneville SSE (not "i") did it. The EGR pipe actually erodes the plastic intake, opening a hole from the nearby coolant passage (for warming the throttle body on cold starts) to the plenum. Better still, because of the intake design (air runners that come up and then turn down above the plenum, the coolant will just sit in the bottom of the intake plenum, until you accelerate, then get sucked up by the rear runners as it sloshes. The problem solver replacement intake makes the whole area around the EGR and coolant passage metal, as I recall.
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Dec 29, 2017 17:45
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Darchangel posted:The problem solver replacement intake makes the whole area around the EGR and coolant passage metal, as I recall. Yep, that's what happened to two 3800 II engined cars I've had (1997 Malibu and 1999 Bonneville). The worst part is that to put the little bit of heat shielding where it needs to be, they have to disassemble the whole engine, which is never cheap. I think the upper and lower intake manifold gasket replacement on the Bonnie cost nearly two grand, which I didn't really have at the time, naturally.
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Dec 31, 2017 19:49
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I feel sorry for you all with your distilled water and super special coolant and what not. Anecdote, evidence etc etc, but I've had at least three cars go past 200k miles, never running anything but tap water and the cheapest coolant I can find on any given shopping trip. Would it be better to run MegaCool™ and distilled water? Maybe. Functionally I can't say there's much difference tho.
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Dec 31, 2017 21:38
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I'm supposed to use G12 but I just use green and tap water. I change it yearly.
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Dec 31, 2017 22:54
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I don't I've ever used anything besides Prestone and hose water in my cars. The Jeep seems to be holding up just fine after 26 years. Granted it is a Jeep though.
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Jan 1, 2018 01:03
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ExplodingSims posted:I don't I've ever used anything besides Prestone and hose water in my cars. Pretty much this, what spurred me to change more frequently was disassembling a couple 10v motors and finding some of the metal lines were disintegrating internally quickly due to electrolysis. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Jan 1, 2018 |
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Jan 1, 2018 01:17
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Bless me father, for I have sinned. I've run straight tapwater in more than one car. One popped a freeze plug after I retired it, the other had radiator troubles which led to overheating enough to crack the block, so gently caress paying for antifreeze to top that off every 30 minutes. Also, turns out it is possible to kill a Ford 5.0, but you have to try really hard/be really lazy.
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Jan 1, 2018 02:52
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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Don’t use tap water/unapproved coolant if you give a poo poo about the car’s long-term prospects. If you don’t then \_(ツ)_/¯ 
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Jan 1, 2018 03:11
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I would call tap water results PO rot
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Jan 1, 2018 03:21
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Big Taint posted:Don’t use tap water/unapproved coolant if you give a poo poo about the car’s long-term prospects. If you don’t then \_(ツ)_/¯ Yeah, but then how will I act all smug in front of goons. "Don't do that? Hasn't happened to me, so it will never happen."
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Jan 1, 2018 03:25
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What is a man? A miserable little pool of coolant.
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Jan 1, 2018 04:19
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Jan 1, 2018 05:21
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You haven't lived until you've had to piss in a radiator while on the side of a deserted road.
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Jan 1, 2018 05:56
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Goober Peas posted:You haven't lived until you've had to piss in a radiator while on the side of a deserted road. or haul a 5 gallon bucket full of water a couple miles trying not to let it slosh too badly E and then try to pour it with shaking arms and that goddamn bucket edge! spookykid fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Jan 1, 2018 |
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