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Flushing coolant????

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Old Jan 9, 2006 | 09:56 AM
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Default Flushing coolant????

ok i have read about dexcool/vs/green ****, i am goin to keep with dexcool but my car is a 2001 and its dirty and the overflow is a little sludgyand i dont know if itsever been flushed at 55k miles,so i wanna flush and clean everything. what is the best way to do this. now what i did in the past with other cars was pull the hoses and run the hose on full blast threw the motor till it ran clean and the same for the radiator. but i now know tap water is bad for cooling systems, and only distilled water should be used, so how do you flush everything and get it clean, can i still flush with the hose let it drain and fill with dex/distilled, or do i need to do somethin else. im thinking that even though tap is bad the little bit that would be left in the system after it drian wouldnt effect anything after being mixed with xx gallons on dex/distilled. lemm know what u guys think thanks. i was gonna have it done but i like to do my own work when i can and i dont wanna spend $65 uselessly to have someone else do it
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Old Jan 9, 2006 | 01:06 PM
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I drain the system and fill it with tap water and a system flusher. Usually drive a few days with that then drain and replace with dexcool and distilled water.

I'm a huge advocate for distilled water or premixed dexcool but I don't think a few days with tap water will amount to anything. The main thing you want to avoid is corrosion and contamination from tap water minerals and contaminants which build up over time.
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Old Jan 9, 2006 | 01:53 PM
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The sludge in your system results from air mixing with the dexcool, or dexcool mixing with the green stuff. Use a system flusher with distilled water and make sure most of it is out before you add the dexcool.
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Old Jan 9, 2006 | 02:24 PM
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ok yeah i was planning on pulling the hoses and flushing with a hose until it runs clean then filling it up with distilled and now maybe flusher and runnin it for a little while then draining it again and then filling it with premixed dexcool.do you have to get flusher completely out or can u just drain and fill.
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Old Jan 9, 2006 | 05:14 PM
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Mixing Dexcool and conventional Green Antifreeze will not cause sludge. That's an old wives tale almost as bad as masturbating will make you blind. The only side effect will be that the mix does not have the long life properties of straight Dexcool.

Here's my process...... Go to Wallmart and get 20 or so $.59 jugs of Distilled Water, drain radiator. Refill radiator w distilled water. Run engine until Tstat opens and water flows through block and radiator. Drain Radiator again and repeat process about 5 times. This allows you to have a block full of pure distilled water and you can add the proper amount Dexcool and distilled to radiator and overflow. I've never seen much results from the cheap flushes, they are so weak in formula I doubt they have any benefits at all.
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Old Aug 17, 2006 | 05:43 AM
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Originally Posted by Ryan02SS
Mixing Dexcool and conventional Green Antifreeze will not cause sludge. That's an old wives tale almost as bad as masturbating will make you blind. The only side effect will be that the mix does not have the long life properties of straight Dexcool.

Here's my process...... Go to Wallmart and get 20 or so $.59 jugs of Distilled Water, drain radiator. Refill radiator w distilled water. Run engine until Tstat opens and water flows through block and radiator. Drain Radiator again and repeat process about 5 times. This allows you to have a block full of pure distilled water and you can add the proper amount Dexcool and distilled to radiator and overflow. I've never seen much results from the cheap flushes, they are so weak in formula I doubt they have any benefits at all.

hmmm...might have to try that
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Old Aug 17, 2006 | 07:26 AM
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Please don't use the garden hose....only use distilled water.
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Old Sep 25, 2006 | 07:58 AM
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Why not? I would just take out the thermostat, garden hose my *** off and then do the 5x distilled water flush, put a new thermostat in there, might as well, fill er up with anti and go!!
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Old Sep 25, 2006 | 01:16 PM
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I like the distilled water flush, have to try that.
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