What coolant should i use?

[no mufflers]

I am currently rebuilding the engine in my 91 f-350. I will be replacing the radiator and I was wondering what coolant I should put in the truck. I have acquired some CAT ELC antifreeze and I would like to use it, im not sure if it would be good for the system.

 

[Wvdirtroad]

I plan to use the CAT ELC as well. I've read of a couple guys on other forums doing it without ill effect. It's designed for heavy duty Diesel engines and it's good for I believe 7 or 8 years and theoretically shouldn't need to be maintained, although I'm sure it would hurt to check it. I'll post back when I get my oil cooler on and I have a chance to try it out.

 

[no mufflers]

thanks for the info. I talked to Mel at Conestoga diesel and he wasn't to confident about the coolant. Im not trying to go against him I just wanted to see if there was anything bad about it.

 

[madpogue]

I know the ELC is not recommended for the early PSDs, but that's because of an incompatibility with their injector cups. IDI is different of course, so maybe ELC is kosher. If you want to be on the safe side, there's always Fleet Charge from Peak, which is old-school ethylene glycol (aka "green", although this stuff is dyed pink) pre-charged with SCA.

 

[dmm]

FWIW I'm running Final Charge Global, which I think is similar to Cat ELC, and I haven't had any problems. Time will tell. I heard about the incompatibility with first generation PSDs. They say it's the copper injector cups, but Final Charge Global is supposed to protect brass and copper. So, who knows?

 

[chris142]

Many of the Long Life coolants don't do well with Copper,Brass and Solder. In fact my warranty on a Copper/Brass and Soldered Radiator is voided if a LL coolant is used. I cant speak for the Global or Cat ELC as I don't have any info on those products. But both are a LL coolant.

But if you want to ruin a soldered radiator put Dexcool or All Makes,All models coolant in it! Guaranteed to eat the solder is less than a year.

 

[no mufflers]

My motor is currently out of the truck so the block has no coolant in it. I will be putting a PSD radiator in it once the motor is in and those are plastic and aluminum. The only other thing is the heater core and I believe those are aluminum also.

 

[dmm]

Many of the Long Life coolants don't do well with Copper,Brass and Solder. In fact my warranty on a Copper/Brass and Soldered Radiator is voided if a LL coolant is used. I cant speak for the Global or Cat ELC as I don't have any info on those products. But both are a LL coolant.

But if you want to ruin a soldered radiator put Dexcool or All Makes,All models coolant in it! Guaranteed to eat the solder is less than a year.

Well, I need a new radiator anyway. It had an intimate encounter with the fan while I was changing the water pump. I patched it up but it still seeps a bit. Besides that the tubes are full of deposits. The PO probably used tap water.

DEX-COOL, as you probably know, causes trouble even in systems it was supposedly designed for.

 

[madpogue]

I will be putting a PSD radiator in it once the motor is in

So you're going with the degas bottle and all? That'll be cool to see.

 

[CDX825]

Quite a few guys on here running ELC with no ill effects. I like peak final charge the best but the cat elc is good as well.

 

[Golden Helmet]

I know the ELC is not recommended for the early PSDs, but that's because of an incompatibility with their injector cups. IDI is different of course, so maybe ELC is kosher. If you want to be on the safe side, there's always Fleet Charge from Peak, which is old-school ethylene glycol (aka "green", although this stuff is dyed pink) pre-charged with SCA.

I would definitely recommend the Fleet Charge, just you won't have to worry about it eating any seals / solder / whatever coolant likes to eat. I'm running it in my truck and I haven't had any problems with it, I just check the fluid and SCA levels every now and then and leave it alone.

 

[FORDF250HDXLT]

i like the fleetcharge too.it's in both trucks and my diesel wood chipper.
if you add a coolant filter,you can use penrays need release filters and run the coolant for the life of the truck.it's in peaks FAQ.
whats nice is,it's just about as worry and maintenance free as ELC is.no need for the liquid sca or test strips with half your strips expiring before you get to use 'em.just swap the filter like every 12 months or whatever it is,and your good to go.

 

[cpdenton]

Have a link to this penrays filter? I have a coolant filter, and fleetcharge.

Come on now, spoon feed me!

Maybe I should just search myself. Off to google!

 

[FORDF250HDXLT]

try an advance search here at this site using my username and penray as the keyword and no doubt you'll find more than you ever wanted lol.

edit.well darn.for some reason advance search isn't working.though i have "posts" (not just thread titles) clicked,it's only showing a few of the threads i started and not searching correctly.that's too bad cus i have many posts with details of the setup.
ah well.yeah try googling this:

fordf250hdxlt penray coolant filter oilburners.

 

[madpogue]

To use any Internet search engine (use google only if you like being spied on....) on a particular site, put "site:<domain_name>" after the search terms. Eg.

fordf250hdxlt penray coolant filter siteilburners.net

A lot of forum features seem to be crippled on this site. You can't get a list of all posts by a user, or a list of your posts that have been thanked, etc.