Cooling System Cleaners

[paulo57509]

I recently got the Camry commuter back from another family member and I've been doing maintenance on it to re-establish a baseline.

The cooling system has been neglected (to say the least) and is pretty rusty inside. No external leaks and the engine does not over heat.

I've already used Prestone cleaner (not the flush) and after the 6 hour soak time, out came the brown mud. The radiator top tank is still rusty so I'm doing a second cleaning cycle using the same cleaning chemical. The rust isn't hard and scaly, it wipes off with a finger...

Is there something out there that is a more effective cleaner or shall I just keep doing what I'm doing until it eventually gets clean (maybe it won't)?

Too bad Permatex doesn't market their two-part cleaner anymore.

Oh yeah, it's NOT Dex-Cool mud.

 

[daves66nova]

also, get a garden hose and shoot some water through the heater lines to flush out the heater core.You'll be suprised at what comes out from there,too.

 

[wander2039]

Well I think of one but my post got deleted so don't know if it would be safe... the company doesn't recommend it either. But hey some of the best things in life isn't recommended!! Wish I had a old car to try it out.

 

[Gary Allan]

I've just used the Prestone HD cleaner. I've left it in by accident for months with just water. Spotless internals (that I could see). I got lucky. Apparently this was when we were short a car and the daughter needed to go somewhere for work. I had to button it up and had some pre-senior moment and it got pushed out of my mind. It was a couple of months (started getting colder) when I decided to check the system before winter.

Anyway, the point I was making was driving with the cleaner installed and going through a few heating cycles. It should yield the results you desire.

 

[paulo57509]

Gary, thanks. The first cleaning "cycle" I left the stuff in for a week; ~400 miles, numerous heat cycles. I didn't back flush the cooling system or anything so there was still a lot of dirty coolant left in there.

This time, I drained and back flushed the system until the rinse water ran clear. Poured in another bottle of cleaner and filled the balance with distilled water. I plan to leave the cleaner in there for at least a couple of week this time.

 

[Gary Allan]

Yeah. I forgot to mention that I had already flushed the system to clear before doing that. I didn't have anything wrong with the coolant, but for some reason the OEM aluminum just looked "unclean". Apparently the cleaner has some form of rust inhibitor in it.

The bad part about that type of neglect is the stuff beyond heater cores and rads ..although they're bad enough. It's all the freeze/sand core plugs and (at times) proprietary piping that's on the engine assembly. If you're lucky, that stuff survives.