What are you guys using to clean out cooling system?
01-06-2011, 09:52 PM
#1
What are you guys using to clean out cooling system? My girlfriend has an Eclipse and I do not believe the coolant has EVER been changed! That stuff is full of chunks and the heater barely gets luke warm. Anyway I have personally flushed it three times with the garden hose and new coolant. I've also put the hose directly on the firewall to flush everything out of the heater core and the heater works a little better but still not hot as it should be. I'm wondering what is some hardcore cleaner I could run in there to clean everything out of the system and break it up so I can flush it again?
01-06-2011, 09:59 PM
#2
I've always had good results with the prestone flush products you can pick up in the little yellow bottles at autozone. If I remember correctly, there are two types. Theres one that's you pour into the engine and let run for a few minutes before flushing, and theres one thats more aggressive you add to the radiator and drive around for a hundred miles or so before draining. Both are good and haven't let me down in the past.
01-06-2011, 10:19 PM
#3
My girlfriend has an Eclipse and I do not believe the coolant has EVER been changed! That stuff is full of chunks and the heater barely gets luke warm. Anyway I have personally flushed it three times with the garden hose and new coolant. I've also put the hose directly on the firewall to flush everything out of the heater core and the heater works a little better but still not hot as it should be. I'm wondering what is some hardcore cleaner I could run in there to clean everything out of the system and break it up so I can flush it again?
Go to Home Depot and get a gallon of Formula 88 degreaser.....
Take the t-stat out and put the housing back on....
Pour half of it in there and fill the rest with water....
Leave the radiator cap off and let it run for 15 minutes.....
Then turn it off for about 30 minutes and let it soak......
Then run it again for 15 minutes......
Drain it all out and flush it with water real good to get all the degreaser out.
Done.
That'll clean anything out of there. I had to do that when my power steering cooler leaked ps fluid into my coolant. It was terrible. Marble sized blobs that just kept on coming out and the inside of the radiator was completely black. When I got done with the degreaser it was crystal clear water running through it and the radiator looked brand new inside.
.
01-06-2011, 10:44 PM
#6
I may try a couple things. I looked up the Prestone stuff mentioned above and it is called "prestone super radiator cleaner". It stays in for days as opposed to a few minutes like the "flush" they sale. I also have a friend at the dealership who can get me some BG cleaner. Supposedly its amazing, he praises all their stuff from BG.
01-07-2011, 10:05 AM
#7
I may try a couple things. I looked up the Prestone stuff mentioned above and it is called "prestone super radiator cleaner". It stays in for days as opposed to a few minutes like the "flush" they sale. I also have a friend at the dealership who can get me some BG cleaner. Supposedly its amazing, he praises all their stuff from BG.
People need to realize that almost every single auto parts store stuff.....is crap and does not do what it says its supposed to do. Its a business, they sell junk. You need to go outside the box to get things that really work to fix problems on cars.
You put that Formula 88 through there like I mentioned above and your cooling system will be 100% clean. It can't hurt anything, not hoses, not your paint, nothing. I spray it on my entire rear bumper once a week to clean my black soot off from running rich. Its great stuff. I use it to clean the underneath area of the wings near the landing gear on my boss' multi-million $$$ jet, I use it all over the outside of the engine and hose it off to clean it every couple months. The stuff can't hurt anything, not even your skin.
Do it, it'll work........
And make sure you take your overflow tank out and clean that sucker with Formula 88 or gasoline or you may get crap/dirt right back into your newly clean cooling system........
.
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01-10-2011, 09:57 AM
#8
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@ LS6427
i appreciate your little walk-through you have him here, i myself will be doing that as well and will be crossing my fingers. i recently bought my 99 ws6 off of a guy with paperwork on the rebuilt engine and transmission as well as the cam job etc etc but i think his maintenance was a little off, so i'm doing all things necessary to keep this beast tamed
also i think my reservoir might be cracked, i just found a rag underneath it.. that doesn't just happen on accident lol
i appreciate your little walk-through you have him here, i myself will be doing that as well and will be crossing my fingers. i recently bought my 99 ws6 off of a guy with paperwork on the rebuilt engine and transmission as well as the cam job etc etc but i think his maintenance was a little off, so i'm doing all things necessary to keep this beast tamed
also i think my reservoir might be cracked, i just found a rag underneath it.. that doesn't just happen on accident lol
01-10-2011, 02:38 PM
#9
The Sears coolant flush won't do **** to help you out. I worked at the Sears Auto center here for a while. We had some 300,000 mile Toyota come in overheating and the coolant looked like it had double the miles on it. Was just pure mud. An old guy in the shop told us about the degreaser method that LS6427 was talking about. That cleaned that car out good! Had brown ****-looking water ALL OVER the rear bay access lot! Then used a toilet brush to clean out hoses and the reservoir. After it was all done we found a leak at a cracked freeze plug, then the old mech replaced it. 110% pain in the ***. Take care of your coolant, guy.
01-10-2011, 08:41 PM
#10
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a guy at advance told me to use just distilled water and half a box of baking soda for my flush. i couldn't find formula 88 ANYWHERE. not home depot, lowes, autozone, or advance. one guy had heard of it, and apparently it's discontinued around here but not fully discontinued? i think that is very lame if so. very lame
if nobody objects i am going to do the distilled water and baking soda idea.
Note: i dont want to have to take out my tstat because it's going to be easier to do the flush without it. is it that much better of a flush with it off the whole time?!
if nobody objects i am going to do the distilled water and baking soda idea.
Note: i dont want to have to take out my tstat because it's going to be easier to do the flush without it. is it that much better of a flush with it off the whole time?!
01-10-2011, 11:08 PM
#11
Yeah take the thermostat out. otherwise the coolant will need to rise in temp before your cleaner even circulates. It won't hurt the car to take it out and it shouldn't take much time either. Anyone know a substitute degreaser? I'm assuming it doesn't foam? If you NEED a non-foaming one, then Simple Green is out.
01-11-2011, 05:18 AM
#12
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Yeah take the thermostat out. otherwise the coolant will need to rise in temp before your cleaner even circulates. It won't hurt the car to take it out and it shouldn't take much time either. Anyone know a substitute degreaser? I'm assuming it doesn't foam? If you NEED a non-foaming one, then Simple Green is out.
Would Purple Power be any good? I've searched everywhere for Formula 88, no luck here
01-11-2011, 10:27 AM
#14
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Its not coolant related but we just did front brakes on an old Oldsmobile, the old man grinded the front brakes down so much the caliper was almost completely gone on the outside, and halfway gone on the inside. Half the piston was completely ground down. I wish I took a picture. Some people just dont give a ****, then bitch that the car is a POS once they have to pay a over 1000 dollars for repairs.
01-11-2011, 11:21 AM
#15
Purple Power is what we used at the Sears I worked at. Check out these brakes! And the customer was REFUSING to but rotors even after being shown the damage. He decided to buy when we said that if he didn't get rotors also, we wouldn't touch ANYTHING on the car.
01-11-2011, 12:27 PM
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the guy before me neglected to do rotors on my car, so yesterday's purchase was a bit expensive... the rotors had a 1/10 of an inch lip. that's pretty big considering they were already about HALF factory minimum spec. i was shocked i didn't have any warping, and only had a little squeak maybe every other day
01-12-2011, 04:04 PM
#20
Well at least all your stories involve the customer. The Sears I worked at had a guy who regularly forgot to put oil in after oil changes, put brake pads on backwards, did a trans fluid exchange when the new fluid reservoir was empty (so just drain the tranny), Forgot to tighten bolts down on shock and strut jobs...all stuff that should have had him fired...even dropped a car off a scissors lift. That's why I left! They got this dumb-**** workin there and the manager is denying ME jobs so that he can do em...because he's been there longer.