Flush OAT/IAT mixture

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Hello all.

I'm getting ready to work with a mechanic friend of mine on replacing my intake manifold gasket, as I've had an issue with my coolant gunking up and rendering my coolant level sensor useless, as well as losing coolant over time. And potential performance issues as well.

Of course, last time he looked at my car, he noticed the coolant (DEX) was a little low and added some regular (green glycol) to top it off.

Apparently he even kept some of the excess around to dump back into the system if I get low. I keep distilled water and fresh dex for that specific purpose. But he insists it won't affect anything so he does it anyway. He also wants to flush it with dish soap which I have no idea about.

So anyway, once we have replaced the gaskets and I'm no longer living with him, I'm going to do as thorough of a flush that I can to get rid of contaminants and inevitable sludge that would have been created by this. It'll probably involve running distilled water + radiator flush for a day or so across a couple of flushes before reintroducing coolant.

Is the prestone stuff good for this? or would there be another product I would want to add since the sludge wouldn't be oil, rust, or scale? Like a "oops I used the wrong coolant" flush.
 
I was just about to make a post about if it would be a good idea to use a chemical descaler made for cleaning bathrooms and such to clean a cooling system?

My Escort's cooling system was neglected by the previous owners so basically despite having changed the coolant 2-3 times the system still has a fair bit of rust inside.

I was thinking of draining all the coolant.

Filling it back up with about 1L of descaler, and the rest plain distilled water.

Going for a drive long enough to fully warm the engine.

Draining the system again.

And refilling with fresh coolant.
 
Descaler is a strong acid that should only be used if you have lots of minerals in your tap water and have direct evidence, like seeing the top of the inside of your radiator core being restricted.

Soap should only be used if you got oil in the cooling system. I changed a cracked head on a saturn once and while I got the system clean eventually the rubber weakened the hoses so they "sweated". Had to change those too. I used cascade-- you don't want to use hand dish soap or it'll foam up.

Water is a good flush. You could use tap water for the first couple flushes then distilled for the last couple. I cleaned my cutlass ciera out by draining the radiator water every evening when it was mostly cold. Never bothered with the block drains.
 
As you know by now old coolants don't mix, search this place. I had a ton of sludge come from mine orange dex mixed with green when I used rmi-25 on it. Put the rmi-26 and drive a while, like 500 miles, check the over flow tank, if there is any sludge that is where it will go. That is something you do preflush, then flush whichever way you decide. I have used it for over a decade, rmi25 is the way to go.
 
OK, so when I mentioned "descaler", I meant that the prestone flush mentioned it could clean out scale.

I did find a higher prestone flush and bought some of it. It mentioned it was designed for blown head gaskets and gunked coolant. So at some point I'll do one of my "super flushes" which is basically the one you find on ChrisFix's youtube channel.

I'll totally look into white vinegar as well.
 
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