Completely sold on JD Cool-Gard II

[Fabulous50s]

Just wanted to give some somewhat scientific evidence that JD CGII works.

I dumped the 2 year old green/distilled water 50/50 mix of IAT (also had a bottle of Rislone Hy-Per cool). Flushed system with hot domestic water....many gallons, removed thermostat etc.

Blew everything out with compressed air in all directions.

Poured in JD coolant (4.8 gallons) from the 2.5gal premix (all the JD dealer had) and put in a bottle of Rislone Hy-Per cool...don't know if it does anything, nothing to loose.

I have a 2 stage electric cooling fan controller. It never even comes on stage 1, same outdoor temps, same everything else. Cooling system always seemed saturated, and/or lack of airflow before. Now with no changes, the temp never gets up to the 200 to turn on the 1st stage cooling fans, other than completly stagnant in town. Would always stay on 1st stage under 30mph, and would go to 2nd (210F) in town, stop and go.

Same thermostat, which was tested 3 years ago, no cooling or timing changes other than the coolant.

 

[Davejam]

I'm not sure i'm following what the situation was before.

But, Not sure why use the additive. I'm not convinced it is a) necessary or b) isn't counterproductive in some circumstances.

 

[Oillover]

I'm not sure i'm following what the situation was before.

But, Not sure why use the additive. I'm not convinced it is a) necessary or b) isn't counterproductive in some circumstances.

+1
Seems like a lot of excitement over nothing

 

[Warstud]

Just wanted to give some somewhat scientific evidence that JD CGII works.

Any Coolant will work . Time will tell if you chose the right one .

 

[Fabulous50s]

All I'm saying is I used the same additive both times, and different coolant makes the same engine/cooling system run significantly cooler.... or at least the cooling fans don't run at all, whereas before in the same ambient temps they would. The H-OAT vs IAT seems to be better at transferring heat to the radiator.

Fan temp sensor is in the engine. And it never gets as hot as before in same outdoor temps.

 

[WobblyElvis]

The heat has to leave the engine. Coolant type will not matter. You are using the same radiator. The only way this radiator could rid itself of the heat in the past, was to use the fan, the same thing must happen now. I think you are fooling yourself.

 

[Fabulous50s]

The heat has to leave the engine. Coolant type will not matter. You are using the same radiator. The only way this radiator could rid itself of the heat in the past, was to use the fan, the same thing must happen now. I think you are fooling yourself.

I understand thermodynamics. The coolant seems to be transferring heat to rad, and rad is rejecting the heat better than before. This is indicated by the engine temp staying below the fan-on temp threshold.

 

[WobblyElvis]

The air is flowing over the outside of the radiator. How is the coolant [inside the radiator] changing how the air picks up the heat? You must be driving differently or the outside temp has changed.

 

[jhellwig]

Or you flushed some junk out that was plugging something up……

 

[Fabulous50s]

This is my 59 Ford. New rad, and engine completly cleaned when I did the rebuild 3 years ago. Coolant out and water out was very clean. I steam cleaned the block on the engine stand for over an hour before reassembly.

I can definitively that everything was clean with the old coolant in it.

 

[tcp71]

Wouldn't the fan be running more if more heat was being transferred out of the engine. It seems this coolant mix isn't working as well as the original as the heat isn't getting to the radiator and triggering the fans, it's staying inside the engine. I think what you consider better performance is actually worse.

 

[Fabulous50s]

@tcp71

Fan temp sensor for the (aftermarket) controller is in the engine.

 

[92saturnsl2]

The new coolant isn't doing anything magical, unless you had the wrong ratio. Water is better at transferring heat than ethylene glycol, maybe the mix was wrong before the new fill? If not that, somehow the operating conditions have changed. Maybe you had some air in the prior fill?

There's no way the coolant chemistry contributed to what you are seeing. Either it's placebo or something else. IAT/OAT is just an additive chemistry with zero heat transferring properties. The change in antifreeze type doesn't change the properties of water and ethylene glycol which are the major constituents of anti-freeze.

 

[Fabulous50s]

The new coolant isn't doing anything magical, unless you had the wrong ratio. Water is better at transferring heat than ethylene glycol, maybe the mix was wrong before the new fill? If not that, somehow the operating conditions have changed. Maybe you had some air in the prior fill?

There's no way the coolant chemistry contributed to what you are seeing. Either it's placebo or something else. IAT/OAT is just an additive chemistry with zero heat transferring properties. The change in antifreeze type doesn't change the properties of water and ethylene glycol which are the major constituents of anti-freeze.

My thoughts exactly.

JD coolant was a premix, and the IAT I mixed myself with distilled water, and poured it in. I gallon of water to a gallon of green concentrate.

I don't know, but it is running cooler now. Just thought I'd share my own experience.

Don't know if silicates can slightly inhibit heat transfer?

 

[Chris142]

The only reason it would run cooler now is because it had too much coolant in it before. Has that 390 been rebuilt, boiled out etc? Those old ford's had a lot of casting flash inside the cooling system and it will plug up the radiator tubes.

 

[Fabulous50s]

The only reason it would run cooler now is because it had too much coolant in it before. Has that 390 been rebuilt, boiled out etc? Those old ford's had a lot of casting flash inside the cooling system and it will plug up the radiator tubes.

Yes, I posted that I rebuilt it 3 years ago. Steam cleaned the block for over an hour. I did knock out some of the casting flash at that time as well. Smoothed out what I could get at with a die grinder.

Water jacket did have a fair amount of green goo which was totally gone after cleaning. All was inspected.

Old rad had been repaired and was in rough shape, bought Alumitech rad. Never ran it with old rad.

The old IAT was just mixed by me, but I never checked the actual specific gravity.

Used Wal-Mart distilled water, and the same coolant jugs the green came in.

 

[Greasymechtech]

Some confuse temps with btu's

Silicates vs borates.... in my experience, almost any non silicate coolant seemed to run my cooling fans less than the ol' silicate coolants.

If you are absorbing more btus from the engine and dumping them at the radiator, because the coolant is more capable, then maybe your fan will run less and you might see lower temps

Silicate coating--insulator... meaning higher temps, more boiling at surface points... and who knows how bad the surface tension is at those points
Borated coolants--less flashing higher boiling point, maybe less surface tension allowing the 50:50 to work

My only recommendation is to run it about a year or so, and re-flush with the 50:50 JDCOOl2 to make sure all your IAT is out of everything(rad/block/head/heatercore/hoses/....)... Its not a combo you want mixing. I will never seeing flushing as all perfect. And, skip the rislonecoolhyper. You don't need anything but 50:50 if the rest of your cooling system is working as intended.

Yuck to silicates... never again. Problem is,my owners manual doesn't allow borated coolants either. Stuck with those 'Asian' coolants in the fleet here.

Use Low Silicate Antifreeze in Heavy Duty Diesel Engines - Frontier Power Products

An informative article from John Deere Product Support.

www.frontierpower.com

When running 50:50, I doubt that any additive works any better than those listed here. You'd need to bump up the water ratio, and use something with corrosion protection since more water = less additives from your EG concentrate due to dilution. Some products don't provide much corrosion protection. So, if the product doesn't, I wouldn't bother using it.

https://www.lubegard.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/KOOLIT_comparison_sheet-page-001.jpg

https://rislone.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/HPC100-PDS.pdf

HyperKuhl SuperCoolant

No-Rosion Cooling System Corrosion Inhibitor

 

[JHZR2]

I understand thermodynamics. The coolant seems to be transferring heat to rad, and rad is rejecting the heat better than before. This is indicated by the engine temp staying below the fan-on temp threshold.

I’m sold on cool Gard II as well. But it does t have a different heat capacity or heat transfer rate than other common coolants. I suspect you have a higher ratio of water in there…

 

[Davejam]

Aside from the heat capacity of water and glycol, theoretically you can improve heat transfer through some other mechanisms.
Dispersants, surfactants, and anti-foam agents can reduce bubble formation, cavitation, and surface tension of the coolant to improve heat transfer.
But that would be marginal over a fully formulated coolant meant for the application. And all indications are that fully formulated coolants contain these already.

Also, everyone of these after-market additives worries me as they either contain silicates, nitrites, 2-EHA which are not universally compatible despite what they claim.

It is possible that Cool-gard 2 is an improvement over what was in there before. These chemicals in coolants do improve over time.

 

[JHZR2]

Aside from the heat capacity of water and glycol, theoretically you can improve heat transfer through some other mechanisms.
Dispersants, surfactants, and anti-foam agents can reduce bubble formation, cavitation, and surface tension of the coolant to improve heat transfer.
But that would be marginal over a fully formulated coolant meant for the application. And all indications are that fully formulated coolants contain these already.

Also, everyone of these after-market additives worries me as they either contain silicates, nitrites, 2-EHA which are not universally compatible despite what they claim.

It is possible that Cool-gard 2 is an improvement over what was in there before. These chemicals in coolants do improve over time.

Assuming we believe JD, the main thing is that their materials loss numbers are superior. So less corrosion and less material loss. Compatible with cooling system materials.

I have no doubt that additives have claims and some measurements that show they’re better heat transfer. But I’ve never seen a vehicle actually running cooler.