first post, coolant flush questions
09-27-2006, 10:12 AM
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first post, coolant flush questions hey all,
First let me introduce myself. I dont know If I completely belong here, I drive an 85 monte with a gen1 small block 350 (no ls1 there, damn.) My girlfriend drives a 98 camaro with the y87 factory upgrade and a 3800 series II (damn no ls1 there either.) Anyway, being that her car is a gen3 motor I figure you guys can help me. I have posted a couple tech questions in the v6 camaro forum where they belong, and I think the oldest member there is 16. Alot of talk about cold air intakes vs ram air intakes, and pretty much little to no mechanical knowledge. Now heres my story:
We bought the camaro 6 months ago, because she wanted a newer car sportier car, and being a gm only kind of guy the camaro was the obvious choice. I check all of her fluids and show her how to do so, although she never does. About 3 weeks ago she calls me up her car is overheating around the block from my house. I go and turn the heat on and let the car cool off for a while, then we drive it to my house to find the car is very low on coolant, although as far as i can tell the car didnt drop any while overheating.. I know these cars use dexcool from the factory, and I always trust gm(there the ones who have spent millions on research.) The fluid in there is a reddish brown. We go up to the store and grab a gallon of dex, come back and dump it in. I turn the car on with the rad cap off the make sure the water would circulate once the car got up to temp, and when It started circulating I notice a more greenish color, and eventually just full green. So it seems the reddish fluid I was originally looking at was just rusty green? And the I just dumped a gallon of dex in. I know they are incompatible with each other, and she is probly doing a world of damage to her car driving it like that. If I drain the radiator and flush it with the hose, then close the petcock fill the rad up with water let it criculated through the block, then dump and flush a few more times, will this be sufficient to remedy my problem? or should I take it to get vacuumed out? after flushing should I refill with dexcool or the green? My gut tells me dex, but apparently someone else thought otherwise. It is also possible someone mixed dex and gren before I got the car and thats why it looked like dex at first and then truned green while circulating. I dont know what I should do.
First let me introduce myself. I dont know If I completely belong here, I drive an 85 monte with a gen1 small block 350 (no ls1 there, damn.) My girlfriend drives a 98 camaro with the y87 factory upgrade and a 3800 series II (damn no ls1 there either.) Anyway, being that her car is a gen3 motor I figure you guys can help me. I have posted a couple tech questions in the v6 camaro forum where they belong, and I think the oldest member there is 16. Alot of talk about cold air intakes vs ram air intakes, and pretty much little to no mechanical knowledge. Now heres my story:
We bought the camaro 6 months ago, because she wanted a newer car sportier car, and being a gm only kind of guy the camaro was the obvious choice. I check all of her fluids and show her how to do so, although she never does. About 3 weeks ago she calls me up her car is overheating around the block from my house. I go and turn the heat on and let the car cool off for a while, then we drive it to my house to find the car is very low on coolant, although as far as i can tell the car didnt drop any while overheating.. I know these cars use dexcool from the factory, and I always trust gm(there the ones who have spent millions on research.) The fluid in there is a reddish brown. We go up to the store and grab a gallon of dex, come back and dump it in. I turn the car on with the rad cap off the make sure the water would circulate once the car got up to temp, and when It started circulating I notice a more greenish color, and eventually just full green. So it seems the reddish fluid I was originally looking at was just rusty green? And the I just dumped a gallon of dex in. I know they are incompatible with each other, and she is probly doing a world of damage to her car driving it like that. If I drain the radiator and flush it with the hose, then close the petcock fill the rad up with water let it criculated through the block, then dump and flush a few more times, will this be sufficient to remedy my problem? or should I take it to get vacuumed out? after flushing should I refill with dexcool or the green? My gut tells me dex, but apparently someone else thought otherwise. It is also possible someone mixed dex and gren before I got the car and thats why it looked like dex at first and then truned green while circulating. I dont know what I should do.
09-27-2006, 10:17 AM
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i've always use dexcool (orange) like everyone else on here, if your so worried just flush it out like you said and refill with one full bottle of dexcool and the rest of water.. your water turned green again because there was more water in the block therefore when the pump started circulating the water it mixed and turned the same color.. the previous might of not know which one to put on when he changed it.
09-27-2006, 10:33 AM
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that was my first thought too. But,when mixed, doesnt the green start to break down the dex really fast? And being that there is already green in there, once I flush it there will still be a little green left over, and will only cause my dex to break down. Or if there is only a few drops of green left in the system it shouldnt matter. I have been searching the forum as well as the rest of the internet, plus I have been asking around at work and it seems like there are ALOT of different opinions on dex cool. by the way,pewter, thank you for such a quick response.
09-27-2006, 10:39 AM
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Originally Posted by zombiedeth
that was my first thought too. But,when mixed, doesnt the green start to break down the dex really fast? And being that there is already green in there, once I flush it there will still be a little green left over, and will only cause my dex to break down. Or if there is only a few drops of green left in the system it shouldnt matter. I have been searching the forum as well as the rest of the internet, plus I have been asking around at work and it seems like there are ALOT of different opinions on dex cool. by the way,pewter, thank you for such a quick response.
no problem.. either way i think your car will be fine
