Technical Hotshot's secret antifreeze

I just dump in stragit antifreeze.... I don't add water at all. Like previously said, I'm just lazy, and imho were not talking about the kind of money I'm going to notice in my life.

When I winterize my boats I do cut it with water, but I have a 50 gallon drum of - 200 antifreeze, so yeah..... That needs cut.

 

I use these coolant test strips to check the PH of coolant .

when I was in automotive I used the factory recommended coolant for whatever vehicle I was working on .

toyota has there own
Ford has there own
Chevy has there own
Jag and the euro car have there own


I’ve seen people neglect coolant changes or mix whatever they could find with failures all over the cooling system , some simple , some catastrophic.


Here in the “ Golden Horseshoe” regular old tap water is “ good enough”. This is coming from rad shops , manufactures and battery companies .

going east , west , or north about an hour , that all changes and the recommendation is distilled water .


On my wife’s appliance I change the coolant before it’s recommended. Cheap insurance if you ask me .


On my old cars I use regular old premixed glycol coolant and I drain and fill the rad every season . For the cost of a gallon of coolant it’s cheap insurance .

I have used water wetter in a couple cars , but I don’t use it in everything .


C’mon people , for the cost of fluids . Any fluid be it oil , coolant , ATF , brake fluid , gear oil it’s all relatively cheap compared to what we spend on other parts and time on our rides .


I like new fresh fluids and filters . At least if there’s a failure I can say I tried .

 

My better half had her engine rot though in the back of the block in her 1999 Ranger pickup with less than 70K on it.
Ford said it was due to failure to follow the schedule changing the antifreeze. She replied the truck had always been serviced at a ford or Lincoln dealership, and she had always done whatever they said was due. Ford eventually cut
a deal with her to replace the engine, she paid the labor, they supplied a short block( actually they gave her a long block as they could not come up with a short block).
Her 2008 F150 rotted out between the manifold and the block, Ford was no help on that one. I bet the dealer does
not use distilled water.

 

The magic of EG antifreeze or for that matter PG is the water. Water alone has a very high heat capacity
and any EG added just reduces the capacity to absorb heat. At 100% EG the capacity is 66% that of pure water. A 50/50 by weight is a good "marketing" blend increasing the BP and reducing the FP to -34*F. Over time in engine use,
the antifreeze pH becomes more acidified as the specific manufactures stabilizers are consumed. From memory,
Prestone starts at 9.5 and probably needs to be checked infrequently

 

Blues -

NO...antifreeze does NOT do ANY work of actually "cooling" the engine. This is no secret, been known for many years, if you've paid attention.
Call an antifreeze manufacturer and verify this ! Be sure to identify the manufacturer and person that you talk to, if you comment back.

Mike

 

Agree. You will lose 10-20% of the cooling capacity when switching from water to glycol. Tropical cars that struggle in the heat may be better of with Type B coolant.

Cheers,
Harv

 

Antifreeze does not have any heat transfer properties at all, eh? None. Zilch. Period. Is that it?

 

are we really arguing this ?

yes when mixed correctly coolant aides in heat transfer .
It also lubricates the pump
Help in corrosion , rust , sludge build up .
Keeping gaskets , seals , aluminum and cast parts in good shape .


We are not talking about putting gold and diamonds in your cooling system but 20-60 bucks worth of something that will extend the life of your ride .

sheesh !!

 

Every time I hear of a plugged or leaking heater core or radiator I'm curious about the history of the coolant maintenance it did not receive.

I had a badly neglected car start leaking to the exterior thru the steel shim head gasket.

In 1968 Plymouth was recommending annual coolant replacement.

For decades Volvo recommended replacing coolant and brake fluid every two years. Some consider Volvo's maintenance schedule excessive or even gouging.
So maybe replacing with new 3 or 4 years is often enough to keep the sacrificial chemicals alive to protect all those different metals from getting into galvanic combat at 200° F. Maybe.

Some suggest materials with a voltage difference of more than .15 volt ( 150 mV) is going to be trouble.
https://cathwell.com/app/uploads/2019/09/galvanic_series_tekst-1.png

 

I was hoping to hear back from Mike VV but he's probably busy, so I'm just going to go ahead and post this: https://www.products.pcc.eu/en/blog/properties-and-uses-of-ethylene-glycol/

Note:
"Ethylene glycol, belonging to a group of compounds called glycols, is a popular refrigerants ingredient due to its excellent heat transfer properties."

Also:

"Ethylene glycol as a component of antifreeze agents has improved heat transfer properties, including lower dynamic viscosity and higher thermal conductivity."

 

With all due respect, I don't think that is correct. Don't believe everything the chemical manufacturers post.

Glycol mixes have a HIGHER viscosity than neat water:
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/...ity of an,increased compared to clean water.\


The HEAT CAPACITY of glycol is also lower. From the same source:
"Note! The specific heat of ethylene glycol based water solutions are less than the specific heat of clean water. For a heat transfer system with ethylene glycol the circulated volume must be increased compared to a system only with water.

In a 50% solution with operational temperatures above 36 oF the specific heat capacity is decreased with approximately 20%. The reduced heat capacity must be compensated by circulating more fluid.".

I could be wrong, but all up you LOSE cooling capacity when running glycol over water.

Cheers,
Harv

 

Sorry, poor communication skills. My post was not meant to infer that adding glycol to water improves the heat transfer properties, just that glycol itself does have heat transfer properties itself. Mike's post said that glycol "does NOT do ANY work of actually "cooling" the engine.", which is wrong, it DOES help with cooling of the engine, even if it's not as effective at transferring heat as straight water.

 

All good

You're right, the water transfers heat, and so does the glycol. I could put dirt in there, and it would transfer heat too (just not much). Come to think of it, I've had plenty of radiators where dirt was doing some of the cooling. I really should change the coolant more (don't buy a used car off me ).

Cheers,
Harv

 

The late great Marlan Davis put this together back in 2013.
https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/glycol-or-water-coolant/

I'm thinking the waterless coolants have even higher viscosity, lower specific heat and maybe even lower thermal conductivity. So if you need better heat transfer out of the engine they may not be a great choice.

https://www.evanscoolant.com/blog/is-evans-waterless-coolant-right-for-my-classic-car/

 

Water is a pretty simple thing, but it is pretty awesome for moving heat around. Think of how much water got used in steam plant in the industrial revolution, marine boilers or in locomotives (nods his head to the stokers... boilers and trains are cool ). Ammonia, freon, propane and other funky stuff do a better job if you want to cool things, but plain old water is the ticket for simple heat transfer.

Cheers,
Harv