Engine Coolant Change

[Terry M.]

Re: Engine Coolant Change

As far as the voltage test, my mercury sable test better than the Corvettes probably because of all the plastics used in the cooling system. Digital meter reads 95mV so that would be .095Volt if I am correct.

It might also be because of the lack of copper/brass in the Mercury system. I really don't know what that cooling system consists of, but modern cars generally have aluminum radiators often with plastic side tanks. This eliminates the weight of copper/brass and the hazard of lead solder. Additionally aluminum has better heat transfer properties and they can thus use a smaller radiator and lower the front of the hood for better aerodynamics. Of course the plastic side tanks will not corrode -- they just deteriorate from the heat and ozone. The use of aluminum/plastic is a win/win/win.

I am not sure how many decimal places millivolts goes to. The engineers here will help with that. I have dealt with thousands and millions of volts (megavolts) for too long. I am completely at the other end of the scale.

[Joe L.]

Re: Engine Coolant Change

It might also be because of the lack of copper/brass in the Mercury system. I really don't know what that cooling system consists of, but modern cars generally have aluminum radiators often with plastic side tanks. This eliminates the weight of copper/brass and the hazard of lead solder. Additionally aluminum has better heat transfer properties and they can thus use a smaller radiator and lower the front of the hood for better aerodynamics. Of course the plastic side tanks will not corrode -- they just deteriorate from the heat and ozone. The use of aluminum/plastic is a win/win/win.

I am not sure how many decimal places millivolts goes to. The engineers here will help with that. I have dealt with thousands and millions of volts (megavolts) for too long. I am completely at the other end of the scale.

Terry------


The vast majority of late model cars, particularly those manufactured by the "Big 3" (a term that may now be obsolete), use aluminum radiators with plastic tanks and aluminum heater cores, often with plastic tanks, too.

[Joe R.]

Re: Engine Coolant Change

Digital meter reads 95mV so that would be .095Volt if I am correct.

Tim,

Bingo! You win the prize.

Joe

[Dan D.]

Re: Engine Coolant Change

Thanks Terry and Duke, I will run by the Ford dealer tomorrow and ask the service manager.. I think the G-05 is approved for the older power stroke but I want to be sure..

As far as the voltage test, my mercury sable test better than the Corvettes probably because of all the plastics used in the cooling system. Digital meter reads 95mV so that would be .095Volt if I am correct.

You are correct - .095V is 95mV. -Dan-

[Phil D.]

Re: Engine Coolant Change

Duke------

If one is filling an empty cooling system, then it's practical to use distilled water with the anti-freeze. However, if one is using the flush-and-fill kit then there's no way that it's practical to use distilled water (unless one happens to have it on tap). As I mentioned, though, if one receives a very high quality tap water, there's very little benefit from distilled water.

As far as chlorine and fluoride go, if present in high quality tap water they will be at levels below 1 ppm. At that level I don't consider they'll harm anything.

We did the job with the flush kit on my brother's 72 right when he bought it as well as changing the original and very swelled up hoses. I'm fortunate to live only a couple of miles from Fort Worth's Environmental Collection Center so we drained as much as we could and took it there. Then flushed whatever little was left in the system right into the grass and it didn't hurt the yard at all. We didn't permanently install the T but removed after the flushing. After the flush and installing new hoses, we drained the clear tap water as much as we could and filled with a proper mix of distilled and coolant. I like that flush kit. I attached some old water hose to discharge the water neatly about 25 feet away so we had less clean-up to do.