Coolant system dirty

[kinger]

Hey guys,

Wondering how you go about cleaning a coolant system. Mine has some black particals stuck on the bottom of the coolant tank and I dont know what from. Normally that would be a bad head gasket but it runs perfect and has never blown a head gasket.

Just vinegar and water to clean it and hope its just crap from when the head was shimmed?

Do all of you engine guys that pull heads, etc have a perfectly clean coolant system?

 

[mulot30th]

just clean it and be done... its it not pushing coolant its okay

 

[mbarryracing]

X2, it's common on every engine. Likely remnant debris or residue from the engine block and head casting process that gets dislodged from the thermal cycling and coolant flow under operation.

 

[Wildman]

Diesel mechanic's use Dawn dish soap & water to clean the coolant systems on Big trucks. I don't see why it wouldn't work for your application. I have done this on my Semi's also & it seems to work just as good as the radiator cleaner stuff.

 

[rxrider]

If you run the old style silicon covered gasket you may get some inside your cooling system. Specially if you have to scrape off the gasket from the cylinder head surface, hard to keep it out of the wather jacket. I change the coolant once a year at a minimum all the black stuff I had in there from when I blew the head gasket is long gone. With the silicon gasket I have used gasket remover, spray on, let it sit for 15-20 minutes, spray some more wait a few minutes, clean off with a cotton rag.
The new version of the gasket is all metal so the black stuff in the coolant is a thing of the past.

 

[kinger]

Hey rxrider - do you have a easy to way flush the system or do you just make a huge mess like I do?

 

[rxrider]

Hahahah I sure do... I put a collector underneat the sled on the left hand side just in front of the running board cooler and detach the hose underneat the secondary clutch, loosen the hose and try to point it into the collector as fast as possible to reduce spill.... impossible LOL
Then I repeat the procedure on the right hand side... but now there is way less fuids left so the spill is bearable. You may open the rear end bleeding screw and drain that first, leave the bleed hole open, speeds up the drain process making more spillage LOL

 

[kinger]

I got a little pump off ebay and might try to make a atachment to pump coolant through the system from say a clean 5 gallon bucket or something. Sure wish there was a easier way to do it.

 

[mulot30th]

whatever way you drain coolant... you'll end up with a mess on the floor.... that is an unwritten rule!

 

[rxrider]

so true mulot, written in coolant on concrete floors LOL