Sounds like a really effective way to destroy a heater core, water pump, and perhaps head gasket. I would never add a caustic acidic mixture to my cooling system. They whole idea is to stop corrosion, not accelerate it. There are some mild acid flushes sold by BP and Prestone etc. which normally are only left in the system for 10 mins. Running Cascade in your cooling system probably simulates 20 years of damage in 20 minutes.
How to clean cooling system?
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Mercedes sold at one point a cooling system cleaner made by Henkel and citric acid. The citric acid was grossly overpriced, I think Whole Foods or your local "organic" or health food store sells the stuff by the pound.
Originally Posted By: Gannet167
Sounds like a really effective way to destroy a heater core, water pump, and perhaps head gasket. I would never add a caustic acidic mixture to my cooling system. They whole idea is to stop corrosion, not accelerate it. There are some mild acid flushes sold by BP and Prestone etc. which normally are only left in the system for 10 mins. Running Cascade in your cooling system probably simulates 20 years of damage in 20 minutes.
I would tend to agree!!! Very risky.
Originally Posted By: nthach
Mercedes sold at one point a cooling system cleaner made by Henkel and citric acid. The citric acid was grossly overpriced, I think Whole Foods or your local "organic" or health food store sells the stuff by the pound.
If you simply MUST have real citric acid you can look in the yellow pages under carpet cleaning supplies. It is sold there relatively cheaply.
Sounds like a really effective way to destroy a heater core, water pump, and perhaps head gasket. I would never add a caustic acidic mixture to my cooling system. They whole idea is to stop corrosion, not accelerate it. There are some mild acid flushes sold by BP and Prestone etc. which normally are only left in the system for 10 mins. Running Cascade in your cooling system probably simulates 20 years of damage in 20 minutes.
I would tend to agree!!! Very risky.
Originally Posted By: nthach
Mercedes sold at one point a cooling system cleaner made by Henkel and citric acid. The citric acid was grossly overpriced, I think Whole Foods or your local "organic" or health food store sells the stuff by the pound.
If you simply MUST have real citric acid you can look in the yellow pages under carpet cleaning supplies. It is sold there relatively cheaply.
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Originally Posted By: Gannet167
Sounds like a really effective way to destroy a heater core, water pump, and perhaps head gasket. I would never add a caustic acidic mixture to my cooling system. They whole idea is to stop corrosion, not accelerate it. There are some mild acid flushes sold by BP and Prestone etc. which normally are only left in the system for 10 mins. Running Cascade in your cooling system probably simulates 20 years of damage in 20 minutes.
I would tend to agree!!! Very risky.
Originally Posted By: nthach
Mercedes sold at one point a cooling system cleaner made by Henkel and citric acid. The citric acid was grossly overpriced, I think Whole Foods or your local "organic" or health food store sells the stuff by the pound.
If you simply MUST have real citric acid you can look in the yellow pages under carpet cleaning supplies. It is sold there relatively cheaply.
You don't agree with the cascade cleaning method? If so what would you recommend?
Originally Posted By: Gannet167
Sounds like a really effective way to destroy a heater core, water pump, and perhaps head gasket. I would never add a caustic acidic mixture to my cooling system. They whole idea is to stop corrosion, not accelerate it. There are some mild acid flushes sold by BP and Prestone etc. which normally are only left in the system for 10 mins. Running Cascade in your cooling system probably simulates 20 years of damage in 20 minutes.
I would tend to agree!!! Very risky.
Originally Posted By: nthach
Mercedes sold at one point a cooling system cleaner made by Henkel and citric acid. The citric acid was grossly overpriced, I think Whole Foods or your local "organic" or health food store sells the stuff by the pound.
If you simply MUST have real citric acid you can look in the yellow pages under carpet cleaning supplies. It is sold there relatively cheaply.
You don't agree with the cascade cleaning method? If so what would you recommend?
It depends how dirty your cooling system is. If it's overheating and the radiator is extremely plugged with scale, I would consider replacing it. Adding a strong acid to your cooling system will cause damage to it and you may end up with a radiator that cools, but also require a lot of new and expensive parts. Looking inside your rad will tell you a bit about the health of the cooling system. You could also remove the upper rad hose and look inside the engine.
If it's fairly clean inside then I would consider just flushing it with water, or an off the shelf cleaner or flush chemical. There may be a slight film of oxidized looking material. This is not uncommon especially if you had silicates in your coolant. Many manufacturers are getting away from silicates these days. But if you had it in the system, they form a layer over the metals to protect them from corrosion. This isn't a big deal.
If you need to flush because the system is really dirty, I would drain the entire system, add a flush T fitting on one of the lines to the heater core, flush out everything with plenty of clean water - only if you have soft water in your area - never use hard water. A flush T looks like this:
It's installed on a heater core so that it blows everything out of the heater core, and through the engine backwards from the normal flow of coolant, basically flushing any [censored] out.
You could then add Prestone Engine Cleaner (not flush) which is designed to be left in your system for several days. Depending on the size of your system and how dirty it is, maybe add 2 bottles. BG and some other companies make similar products.
You could also add a bottle or 2 of Prestone Flush, depending on your cooling system's capacity. This is designed only to be left in your system for 10 minutes as it is mildly acidic (far less so than Cascade) anything longer and there's a risk that it will begin to erode your cooling system and engine. I would add this and run the engine at fast idle or drive around the block, until the thermostat opens. Once it is fully open and coolant in the radiator (and the flush) is being circulated through the engine and heater core, go 10 minutes, stop and drain.
After any cleaning agents, you need to flush the system with clean water, tons of clean water to ensure all the acidic agents are gone. The flush T is really the only way to do this, other than disconnecting a heater core line and inserting a garden hose into it. I let the water run for about 15 minutes and even start the engine to ensure there's circulation of fresh water and no air pockets.
It's critical that anytime you add water, particularly through a flush T, into your engine, that the engine be COLD. That doesn't mean the gauge says it's near the letter C on the dashboard. It means put your hand on the engine an it should be ambient temperature, maybe slightly luke warm. If the engine is hot, or even partially warmed up and you blast cold water through it, you're very likely to crack or warp something.
Finally, drain as much water as possible from the system and add the correct amount of concentrated coolant. For example, if the system is 7.5 liters, I add a 3.78 liter (4 quart) bottle of coolant. This gives me a little more than 50/50, which is the right amount in most applications. You need to get all of the coolant into system to ensure the correct mix. Then, add water to top it off. The capacity includes the overflow bottle, so I save a little coolant to add to the overflow with water. If yours is a sealed system with a pressurized overflow bottle, this isn't required.
If you want to use pre-mix coolant, you will need to get ALL of the water out of the system before adding the pre-mix, otherwise you're diluting it below the intended ratio of coolant/water. This means blowing water out of your heater core, opening all the engine block drain plugs, the drain at the bottom of the radiator, all the hoses etc. It can be fairly tricky to get everything out - which is why I find the concentrated coolant a better method. I'm sure that my block wont freeze (and crack) and I have enough coolant to protect against corrosion.
Some people get quite OCD about using distilled water. If you have soft water coming from your hose then using it isn't a big deal. Any shop you take the car to is using that water to flush.... so.... You could add distilled water for the final fill but I don't worry about it since my water is very soft. If you have hard water with a lot of mineral content, DON'T use it to flush or for the final fill.
Make sure you use the right coolant, which there is 100's of threads and arguments on. But in short, be sure what your car takes - whether it can have silicates, phosphates, is an OAT, HOAT, P-OAT, 2-EHA etc. The color of the coolant is only a dye and does not actually indicate anything about the coolant type.
If it's fairly clean inside then I would consider just flushing it with water, or an off the shelf cleaner or flush chemical. There may be a slight film of oxidized looking material. This is not uncommon especially if you had silicates in your coolant. Many manufacturers are getting away from silicates these days. But if you had it in the system, they form a layer over the metals to protect them from corrosion. This isn't a big deal.
If you need to flush because the system is really dirty, I would drain the entire system, add a flush T fitting on one of the lines to the heater core, flush out everything with plenty of clean water - only if you have soft water in your area - never use hard water. A flush T looks like this:
It's installed on a heater core so that it blows everything out of the heater core, and through the engine backwards from the normal flow of coolant, basically flushing any [censored] out.
You could then add Prestone Engine Cleaner (not flush) which is designed to be left in your system for several days. Depending on the size of your system and how dirty it is, maybe add 2 bottles. BG and some other companies make similar products.
You could also add a bottle or 2 of Prestone Flush, depending on your cooling system's capacity. This is designed only to be left in your system for 10 minutes as it is mildly acidic (far less so than Cascade) anything longer and there's a risk that it will begin to erode your cooling system and engine. I would add this and run the engine at fast idle or drive around the block, until the thermostat opens. Once it is fully open and coolant in the radiator (and the flush) is being circulated through the engine and heater core, go 10 minutes, stop and drain.
After any cleaning agents, you need to flush the system with clean water, tons of clean water to ensure all the acidic agents are gone. The flush T is really the only way to do this, other than disconnecting a heater core line and inserting a garden hose into it. I let the water run for about 15 minutes and even start the engine to ensure there's circulation of fresh water and no air pockets.
It's critical that anytime you add water, particularly through a flush T, into your engine, that the engine be COLD. That doesn't mean the gauge says it's near the letter C on the dashboard. It means put your hand on the engine an it should be ambient temperature, maybe slightly luke warm. If the engine is hot, or even partially warmed up and you blast cold water through it, you're very likely to crack or warp something.
Finally, drain as much water as possible from the system and add the correct amount of concentrated coolant. For example, if the system is 7.5 liters, I add a 3.78 liter (4 quart) bottle of coolant. This gives me a little more than 50/50, which is the right amount in most applications. You need to get all of the coolant into system to ensure the correct mix. Then, add water to top it off. The capacity includes the overflow bottle, so I save a little coolant to add to the overflow with water. If yours is a sealed system with a pressurized overflow bottle, this isn't required.
If you want to use pre-mix coolant, you will need to get ALL of the water out of the system before adding the pre-mix, otherwise you're diluting it below the intended ratio of coolant/water. This means blowing water out of your heater core, opening all the engine block drain plugs, the drain at the bottom of the radiator, all the hoses etc. It can be fairly tricky to get everything out - which is why I find the concentrated coolant a better method. I'm sure that my block wont freeze (and crack) and I have enough coolant to protect against corrosion.
Some people get quite OCD about using distilled water. If you have soft water coming from your hose then using it isn't a big deal. Any shop you take the car to is using that water to flush.... so.... You could add distilled water for the final fill but I don't worry about it since my water is very soft. If you have hard water with a lot of mineral content, DON'T use it to flush or for the final fill.
Make sure you use the right coolant, which there is 100's of threads and arguments on. But in short, be sure what your car takes - whether it can have silicates, phosphates, is an OAT, HOAT, P-OAT, 2-EHA etc. The color of the coolant is only a dye and does not actually indicate anything about the coolant type.
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*installed on a heater core HOSE* I meant to say.
any insight on how to do this procedure on a 97 saturn sl2? With the single reservoir. appears to not have a real "radiator" cap, just a cap to the coolant recovery bottle, which appears to be pressured...GFs car is overdue, lol, used vehicle, she's had it a good 3 years and has basically just done oil changes to it.
Took it to one of the Lube shops, and they had this cart on wheels they used that said is supposed to suck out the old stuff, then blow in the new stuff, etc....but I just don't like that idea....rather have something like the T flush done...
Took it to one of the Lube shops, and they had this cart on wheels they used that said is supposed to suck out the old stuff, then blow in the new stuff, etc....but I just don't like that idea....rather have something like the T flush done...
What I'm planning to do is just drain the cooling system completely, fill with water, and run for 15 minutes or so. Let it cool a bit, and drain again. Then mix up a couple cups of the powdered detergent with water in a small container, and pour that into the reservoir FIRST. Then fill it up with water and do it again. Drain, rinse & refill a couple times to get all of the detergent out, and should be good to go.
If diesel rigs have been cleaned with cascade to clean their cooling systems for this long and they go hundreds of thousands of miles without cooling system issues, how is the detergent hurting the system?
I think you can safely use it for a short period of time if you don't overdo it.
I think you can safely use it for a short period of time if you don't overdo it.
This is a 5.7 l GM V8 that is loosing a bit of coolant. First place I'd look is intake gasket which is a weakness of 4.3, 5.0 and 5.7 GM engines. It's probably leaking on right bank cylinder 8. The original gasket is plastic and fatigues to the outside.
Have you noticed periodic smells of antifreeze while driving? It won't be a continuous smell but just periodic with you thinking the car ahead of you was having an antifreeze leak.
Get a radiator pressure tester to see if it will hold the 15 lb or does it drop pressure quite rapidly. If it drops pump it back up until you can see where it's leaking, then you will know what the issue is. Should it be the intake manifold gasket, use only Felpro metal gaskets to replace then the problem will be permanently resolved.
Automatic dishwasher soap works great to clean the cooling system up.
Hope this helps. I just completed the intake gasket replacement on my 2002 4.3l GMC Safari van.
Have you noticed periodic smells of antifreeze while driving? It won't be a continuous smell but just periodic with you thinking the car ahead of you was having an antifreeze leak.
Get a radiator pressure tester to see if it will hold the 15 lb or does it drop pressure quite rapidly. If it drops pump it back up until you can see where it's leaking, then you will know what the issue is. Should it be the intake manifold gasket, use only Felpro metal gaskets to replace then the problem will be permanently resolved.
Automatic dishwasher soap works great to clean the cooling system up.
Hope this helps. I just completed the intake gasket replacement on my 2002 4.3l GMC Safari van.
If the Dex/green mixture were causing a problem (as in gelling), you would already know about it due to over heating or higher coolant temps. I would not use any cleaner not approved by the mfr. Cleaners often make leaks worse, since GM among others actually fixes small leaks not quickly repairable on the line by using a miture primarily consisting of....pause for dramatic effect.........turmeric. Yes, that turmeric. When water soaked, turmeric will swell when exposed to air and form a good, malleable repair. Cleaners can break down this sort of thing.
P.S. "Bar's Leaks" also uses seasoning I have been told.
P.S. "Bar's Leaks" also uses seasoning I have been told.
I use the good Cascade to clean my dishes and it cleans very much better than the phosphate free stuff. I wouldn't have any concerns using Cascade. It's safe enough on plates to eat off after use, and for a fact, it's been used to clean cooling systems for a long time. Gut feel, about half a cup would be enough. I plan to do it myself in the next month or so, and refill with distilled water and Peak Global Lifetime full strength to a 50/50 concentration.
Thought I'd report back after finally using it. I didn't measure it, but mixed up about 2 gallons worth, used quite a bit of it. Since my truck was leaking/using coolant, I used it as a top-up for about 2 weeks (ended up with about a gallon and a half in it), and the water pump when I took the rear cover off was astonishingly clean. I used a garden hose to flush out the heater core and the radiator and got nothing but a flood of rusty water out of both. I'd say it was a success. Would definitely use again.
We had a AC cobra replica here where the oil cooler began to leak internally and really sludged up the cooling system. We tried the BG cooling system flush which definitely didn't work but is designed more as a prevenative maintenance service than fix all. Attempted flushing and back flushing with water with no progress here either. Then we filled the cooling system with kerosene and ran the engine. It sounds a bit off but it definitely worked. Definitely didn't think of the cascade or dishwasher soap trick, that sounds like that would have worked great as well!
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