nitrate or nitrate free coolent?

BoxCarKidd · Sep 24, 2024

Probably a good idea but I will not usually go through the PITA to do all that. Worst problems I see is people not using distilled water with green or using any water with the reds. Best of my understanding.

Rideandrepair · Sep 24, 2024

BoxCarKidd said: ↑

Probably a good idea but I will not usually go through the PITA to do all that. Worst problems I see is people not using distilled water with green or using any water with the reds. Best of my understanding.
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Lol. I’m tired just thinking of it.

tj379 · Sep 25, 2024

Rideandrepair said: ↑

Best way is with a garden hose. Make sure the heater hose shutoff valves under the hood (if equipped) are open, and heater controls in cab/bunk are set on warm, so heater cores get flushed. Drain the coolant, fill with water. Start it up, let it run. Keep the hose in the fill tank. turned on enough that it’s always overflowing a bit, so you know it’s full. Open radiator drain, and/or take plug out of bottom radiator hose steel tube if possible. Helps it drain faster, and usually is the lowest point. Let it run like that a while. At least 15-20 minutes. Shut it off, drain it. Fill with distilled, run it, shut off, and drain it. Fill with new coolant. If no access to a garden hose. Improvise using empty jugs. Filling it with water, running it, shutting it off, draining it. At least once. Then a final flush with distilled. It’s a PITA, but gets the job done. I think a final flush with distilled it’s worth the $10. Cheap Insurance. Especially if you have hard water. Usually if waters hard, soap doesn’t lather up good. If it’s soft it lathers up real good and the soap even feels like you can’t rinse it off. Almost slimy, if it’s real soft. That’s the good stuff. Fill with new coolant, then let it run on high idle with the cap off for a good while, at least an hour, to get any air pockets out of the system. Good idea to have at least 2 extra gallons onboard. Air can get really trapped sometimes. Might have to top it off down the road a couple times. Adding coolant slowly, tilting the jug sideways instead of just dumping it straight it helps keep the air out. If you do end up with a lot of trapped air pockets, you could shut down from low coolant as the air works it’s way out. If so, it helps to run with the cap just a little bit loose for a few hours or so. to release the trapped air once it does work it’s way out. Only other thing I can think of, is if after the first or second flush it’s still looking real cruddy. You can use a Flush/Cleaner. There’s all kinds of them. I’ve heard Cat makes a real good one. It’s expensive, but works great. Follow the directions.
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right on... i have a garden hose but no distilled, i can take off heater hises at valves snd blow back opposite direction to flush cores and blow out with air to make sure both cores are mt of water,it will be just makin sure sll waters out of the block....

Rideandrepair · Sep 25, 2024

tj379 said: ↑

right on... i have a garden hose but no distilled, i can take off heater hises at valves snd blow back opposite direction to flush cores and blow out with air to make sure both cores are mt of water,it will be just makin sure sll waters out of the block....
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. They make a kit available at any auto parts store. It splices into the heater hose, hose threads into it. Turn hose on high. Comes with a spout for radiator tank to aim water away. Not sure I’d leave it in place. Just replace with a new hose. Maybe disconnect one of the heater hoses on the other heater core. (Bunk) Just to make sure it’s getting flushed. Flush separately if needed. I’ve only used them on a car. Probably not necessary. I like the idea of using more pressure. Blowing with air afterwards. Great idea. Let us know how it works out.

tj379 · Sep 28, 2024

using air to reverse flush cores works nice, allot junk out of em, they were acting like a filter lol, i went with nitrate free coolent but now still reaseaching and it looks like cat dont approve any coolent thats nitrate free ? idk

tj379 · Sep 28, 2024

tj379 · Sep 28, 2024

on another note ... these say maintenance free, but have removeable cell caps.... ever need to top these up?

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