K series coolant antifreeze replacement

[glasgow]

******* WHAT AN EVENING *********

 

Coolant arrived yesterday. So, here we go - time to start the work.... have been reading about bleeding and problem that could be encountered.

 

Drained the old coolant, car jacked high, filled slowly with garden hose.Turned the engine on idle, everything seems fine, temp gradually reached 80, then 5 minutes later, temp about 88 fan on. Waited till engine cold then drained the water. Only get about 3 litres. SO, HERE I STARTED TO DO THINGS WRONG..... ☹️ I decided to release the lower hose attached to the rad. this drained another litre - total 4 litres drained now. Still not the quoted 5.1L bearing in mind I had a full expansion tank. As I bought a ready made coolant not a concentrate, I thought I better get rid of all the water. So here we go, heater inlet (upper) hose released and gave it a blow.... silly I know, but now I got 5 litres drained... now decided to do a test trial before using my coolant. System filled slowly through the expansion tank, about 4.75L used but forgot to fill the upper heater hose. Engine on, temp quickly reached 80, ☹️then creeping us and reached 100, fan not working. Bottom of rad and lower hose attached to rad freezing cold. Trieddtm do the massage but to be honest not sure how to do it. By this time it was already after midnight... went bed upset [ :(] this morning I topped up through the upper heater hose, turned the engine on, bottom of rad and lower hose eventually got hot and temp gradually reached 80-85 and fan working fine.

 

So, THE QUESTION IS: is that it, job done and ready to put the coolant same way? My concern is the lower hose attached to the rad is NOT as hot as the upper hose.... is this normal or it means there is still air that may lead to air block later? I am driving the car this morning to see how it will do....

 

Edited by - Glasgow on 1 Apr 2011 09:50:16

[Sheds Moderator]

I'd establish which bit of the cooling system is highest, jacking it up if necessary, then get it running and bleed any residual air from that point. On my car this was the rad bleed screw, on cars with a heater it can be the heater hose so you can pull off this hose and bleed it here. You'll lose a drop of coolant, hardly a big deal.

[glasgow]

what should be the engine temp during the bleeding? Is it safe to open the rad bleeding point or detach the heater hose while engine is hot? In my car the heater inlet hose is higher than the rad. I don't have a bleeding t, would jacking the rear of the car give any benefit? Thank you

[Sheds Moderator]

Do it cold and jack the froint if necessary, jacking the back is unlikely to help. I take it you drilled a hole in the stat so the air can escape with it shut? It's safe to open the bleed point with the engine WARM but not hot, I wouldn't remove the heater hose with the thing more than lukewarm as you will scald yourself.

[glasgow]

Didn't drill a hole.... happy to do it but, A. Where is stat located.. B. Any guide about how and where the hole should be...

[Sheds Moderator]

It's a bit of a pig for location, under the inlet manifold IIRC. The hole is 3mm (1/8") in the plate, positioned near the top, it just allows any water/air to pass slowly through when the engine is cold and means that you won't get an airlock on one side of a closed stat. It has a negligible effect in running conditions.

[wpqs]

Heating tap water above 61°C/141°F causes any dissolved calcium to precipitate out as limescale that can accumulate on and corrode metal parts and surfaces. This is a particular problem in the parts of the country with high levels of dissolved calcium and other salts in their tap water - i.e. hard water areas like London. Boiling tap water in a kettle can remove its temporary hardness, but leaves calcium sulfate and/or magnesium sulfates ions in the water which can also contribute to engine corrosion. Therefore people living in hard water areas may want to consider using some form of purified water when diluting their engine coolant. In this regard distilled water is more expensive than deionised water, but less readily absorbs carbon dioxide so avoids your coolant becoming a weak carbonic acid solution which may corrode the metal parts in your engine.

References...

https://www.chemicals.co.uk/blog/deionised-water-or-distilled-water

In natural water, both calcium and magnesium primarily exist bound to bicarbonate, sulfate or chloride. When hard water evaporates or is heated above 61°C/141°F, bicarbonate converts to carbonate and precipitates out with Ca++ to form calcium carbonate (CaCO3) scale that can accumulate on and corrode metal parts and surfaces. Therefore purified water is often used in cooling systems, particularly in hard water areas like London. There are two main types of purified water:

• Distilled - produced by heating tap water past its boiling point so it vaporises. The collected vapour is then cooled so it condenses into distilled water. This process removes all impurities including ions, minerals, heavy metals and organic matter
• Deionised / demineralised - typically produced by passing tap water through an ion exchange resin so charged ions are replaced hydrogen and hydroxide ions which combine to form pure water without any charged ions. Unfortunately the process makes deionized water more able to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere so forms a weak carbonic acid solution which can corrode metal parts

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18965910/

Deoxygenated water is a further type of purified water. It is typically produced by

• boiling at normal atmospheric pressure (like boiling water in a kettle)
• boiling under reduced pressure
• purging with Nitrogen
• sonication under reduce pressure

Boiling at normal atmospheric pressure was found to be the least effective way of producing deoxygenated water.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemical-engineering/water-hardness

Water hardness is the total calcium and magnesium ion concentration in a water sample and is expressed as the concentration of calcium carbonate. Temporary hardness is that part of the total hardness that disappears on boiling. Permanent hardness is not removed by boiling.

 

[Jonathan Kay]

NB date.

Hard water used in coolant doesn't seem to cause problems.

But if anyone is worried the easy (!) solution (!) is to use a prediluted product.

Jonathan

[wpqs]

Agreed Jonathan - the simplest solution is usually the best

Whilst writing the post it did strike me that coolant manufacturers may put additives in their product that inhibit the formation of carbonic acid so allowing people to use deionized water as a dilutant. I will contact the CTO of Connor and raise the point with him/her/they.

[John Vine]

For info, I buy Comma's G30 concentrate and then dilute it with the condensate from my Ebac dehumidifier.

JV