Self Flushing Coolant Line

austin92

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I like to keep tap water out of my cooling system so I flush with distilled. I’ll buy 2 bottles of the prestone cooling flush cleaner stuff, drain the radiator, fill with distilled and cleaner and run it for a week or so. Then drain, fill with distilled, drive to work and back, and repeat until I get pure clean water coming out, then top off with straight non diluted coolant. Even unplugged a few heater cores this way.


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Cubey

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I like to keep tap water out of my cooling system so I flush with distilled. I’ll buy 2 bottles of the prestone cooling flush cleaner stuff, drain the radiator, fill with distilled and cleaner and run it for a week or so. Then drain, fill with distilled, drive to work and back, and repeat until I get pure clean water coming out, then top off with straight non diluted coolant. Even unplugged a few heater cores this way.

For better or worse, I just bought an in line RV water filter that connects to a garden hose and used that to backflush and use for 50%. I figured that would be good enough. Still better than unfiltered city water and costs as much as tons of gallons of distilled.
 

Scotty4

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Just finished flushing with the plugs and tstat removed. Let it go for 30 minutes, I have a filter on my tap I used so it should be ok. No distilled though. Going to let it drain this evening and fill it up tomorrow.
 

Scotty4

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Thermostat looked original. The rubber ring around the OD of it could be wiped away as it was mushy.

Think I just about caught all the water coming out of it...
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IDIBRONCO

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That wasn't a Motorcraft thermostat. The don't have (and aren't supposed to have) a rubber seal around them.
 

dgr

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Lightly grease the gasket on the coolant filter. It will come of easier.

I like to use lemony fresh dishwashing detergent to clean my cooling system. I flush with the garden hose then flush again twice with distilled.

@Cubey A filter isn't going to remove any dissolved minerals from the water. All the parts on our cooling systems cost more than 20 gallons of distilled water to my way of thinking.
 

Scotty4

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Lightly grease the gasket on the coolant filter. It will come of easier.

I like to use lemony fresh dishwashing detergent to clean my cooling system. I flush with the garden hose then flush again twice with distilled.

Thanks for the tip. I will grease the filter when I install it for sure. I only have the dawn apple stuff but will run some more through it today before putting the new thermostat in.
 
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IDIBRONCO

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When I would do a cooling system flush for a leaking oil cooler o-ring,I'd dump about a half gallon of laundry detergent in there. Boy did it take a while to get it all out. Not that it's right or wrong, it's just what we did at the shop I worked at. Plus I got paid by the hour, so I didn't really care how long it took to get out.;)
 
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Cubey

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@Cubey A filter isn't going to remove any dissolved minerals from the water. All the parts on our cooling systems cost more than 20 gallons of distilled water to my way of thinking.

I couldn't really backflush with distilled though. Where you leave the rad cap off and have fresh water flowing in to push crap out of the radiator filler neck. In 2 years when it's due again (3 year interval), I'll probably use distilled next time. I just had so many expenses for repairs right after buying the RV that i felt that was the best option for the time. Filtered was still better than raw city water, even if it wasn't as good as distilled.
 
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Trevtron

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Motorcraft just farms out the parts, pretty certain any modern Motorcraft T-stat for our rigs is made by Stant.
 

Cubey

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Motorcraft just farms out the parts, pretty certain any modern Motorcraft T-stat for our rigs is made by Stant.

Maybe so, but they are make a certain specific way. Doesn't matter so much who makes it but how they make it.
 

IDIBRONCO

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Not that it really matters, but in post #40, Cubey quoted a post by dgr and I got credit for it. I wonder how that happened? Just curious.
 

Cubey

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Not that it really matters, but in post #40, Cubey quoted a post by dgr and I got credit for it. I wonder how that happened? Just curious.

I edited the quote buffer badly. Fixed now.
 
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