Distilled water or coolant/antifreeze

Okay so then because the coolant acts as a fluid stabilizer as well

Got it.

Do you think it would be okay to keep the flush fluid and distilled water in there for about a week? I'm doing a short road trip and will be away from the garage for a week or so

God no, that shit is only meant to be cycled through for like 15-20 minutes. You'll need to make a few hours of the job.

Even though the prestone fluid says that it's good for about 3 days for a "deep cleaning"

If it says you can on the bottle then follow that if you like. Though be warned, that shit can also make your radiator leak if it's got a few pinholes that were just clogged with crap.

Got it, this isn't the first flush it's had, just the first one that I've done

I had my local shop do a flush in the summer and fall last year and decided I should just do it myself and save the money

AZ bro here.

You can run a much lower ratio of antifreeze here, as long as temps don't go below freezing you can actually run pure 100% tap water.

"Coolant" is a marketing term to sell anti-freeze to warmer climates. Technically water is coolant because it cools the engine.

Think about it, put a bottle of vodka and a bottle of water in the freezer. The water bottle will expand but the vodka doesn't, because water expands when it freezes and alcohol doesn't. If you don't use anti-freeze in sub zero weather the water in your cooling system would expand overnight and crack your block/radiator. Science.

That said, anti-freeze is still a good idea in AZ because it does actually drop below freezing here in the winter, and you'll forget to add some late November, so it's cheap insurance to use it now.

Now about that flush, how old is your truck and how much is a radiator? Call around and find out, if it's a common part it could be cheaper than $100. Overheating can be caused by a lot of things, but if your radiator is clogged full of crap it's fucked.

Buy a bottle of Prestone flush. Last time I did a flush it's like $3 at Walmart vs. $8 at OReilly/Autozone. Dump that shit in, drive around a few hours/days, let it heat up and cycle through the system. It works. Do your flush with water from the garden hose, otherwise you're gonna need about 20 gallons of distilled water that you'll just drain right out. After the flush unhook both radiator hoses and let the water drain. Run the engine for a minute to pump out all that tap water. Now, seal it up and dump in a gallon of cheap antifreeze, don't buy the premixed it's waste of money, and then top it off with distilled water. Run the engine for 15-20 minutes with the heater on full blast to burp the air out of the system, and then top it off with distilled again.
Done.

Don't overthink it.

93 ford ranger, looks like a new aluminum one is like $120 from Oreileys.

The radiator isn't clogged but gets above "normal" temperature by a few degrees. Still well within acceptable ranges but I'd like it to be running cooler. I know some of it is from mud on the back side so it stops the air flow, I'm going to be brushing that off very gently tomorrow.

I've got two bottles of the prestone flush because my coolant capacity calls for two bottles of it and I've got plenty of distilled water. I'm gonna dump the nasty old rusty fluid that's in there already, put the flush fluid in and then distilled water, run it for a week (because I'll be out of town for a little bit) and then when I get back, repeat as necessary

> Tap water
> Pure

What the fuck cunt? Tap water is full of minerals and sediment. Do what you want OP it's your car, but seriously, do not do this. Especially if this engine is an iron block with alloy heads. You are going to have a sad time if you still have this car in a few years.

Coolant boils a higher temperature than water, and it freezes at a lower temperature than water.

I always go 50/50, but in a more extreme weather location, I'd consider a higher coolant to water ratio. Not a big fan of premixed coolant and I always buy full strength coolant along with distilled water.

If you want to change the running temperature, you need to change the thermostat.

>Flow rate has almost nothing to do with cooling capacity. You either have enough or not.

you do know what water wetter is, right? and how it works? probably not. cuz u sound like a dummy regurgitating what u heard on an episode of theSmokingTire lmfao

>He buys things to make his water wetter
I like this meme

The coolant in warm climates is primarily there to keep the water from rusting the shit out of your block. The red mud that Chris fix shows in his video is literally just aqueous rust.

Change and flush coolant regularly and you'll never have this problem.

Coolant also lubricates water pump seals. Good general coolant thread:

bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?181435-Redline-Water-Wetter-MSDS-In-case-you-wanted-to-know

If your vehicle has Dex-Cool, drain it and never use again.

zr1specialist.com/HAT Web/articles/Evidence that DexCool Harms the Cylinder Head Gasket.pdf

If you have serious cooling problems I strongly suggest fitting a LARGE aftermarket oil cooler. Kits are plentiful. Install it properly. Cool the oil and temps drop.

Ancient mechanic over and out...

>I want to know if after these flushes if I can do a lower level of antifreeze/coolant
It has additives to fight the formation of rust. Below a certain concentration, the additives aren't much use even if present, so you should use the coolant in the concentration specified. Coolant also reduces formation of scale in the passages. Both scale and rust reduce cooling in the engine. So if you had been using mostly water, the scale and rust built up inside the engine.

Over time, the additives in the coolant are used up and thus it should be drained and replaced with new fresh coolant in the required concentration. Don't over dilute the coolant.

You obviously don't because that additive is to reduce or eliminate the leidenfrost effect due to running low coolant to water ratios. It has nothing to do with increasing flow rate.

If I flush my rad and there's some temperature fluctuation (nothing extreme, but jumps from low to higher temps, no boiling over or near the danger zone) is that the system just working the air bubbles out? Basically is it normal for that to happen?

the radiator cap is on in this case. It seems to have settled out but it still has some changes.

I'm going to add some more water tonight after the engine cools down again.

I use straight distilled water.

Why the fuck would I use antifreeze in california.

similarly why the fuck would use antifreeze in az

water wetter isn't "coolant" like you buy in the store.

pls help

I don't want blow my engine up

Sounds very much like air. Bleed the system of air again, make sure you have opened the highest bleed point and fill until this overflows. Parking nose-up on a hill can help you make the radiator cap the highest point.

Thanks, I'll give that a shot later this afternoon

Every day you only put distilled water in is a day that your engine is going to slowly dissolve away from corrosion.

The coolant is primarily used to prevent rust from pure water. Even pure water will corrode iron as the dissolved oxygen reacts with iron and the water allows for the redox reaction to occur.

This is in addition to the water pump which may not last as long without coolant additives.

Even aluminum will corrode if exposed to water constantly as the oxides are eroded from the block and fresh aluminum is oxidized.

Antifreeze is not the only thing in coolant.

Water has a higher specific heat capacity than glycol, making it a better coolant.

OP here guys

Did the flush this morning but there wasn't nearly as much burping or topping off as I would have thought. I think there may be some air in the system still but it was also 105 outside today so I'm going to top off a little bit later and go for a drive when it isn't crazy hot

Gonna keep it in there for three days to hopefully flush everything and then do coolant and distilled water

Thanks for the help

Go for a roughly 10-15F cooler thermostat. Never hurts.

>Flow rate has almost nothing to do with cooling capacity
Hmm let's have a look at the ol' Dittus-Boelter equation, shall we?
Nu = 0.023 * Re^(4/5) * Pr^0.3
Now, I know for a fact that you're not an engineer, so let me explain this to you. What this means is that with a higher velocity, the heat transfer rate goes up. And with a lower viscosity (viscosity is the thickness) the heat transfer rate goes up, even if the velocity stays the same.

t. am engineering student, and also not an idiot.

And like most engineers, you can only think in theory, not practice. Your formula is limited by the heat exchange capability of the radiator in the car. If the flow is enough to saturate the radiator, adding more won't do anything.

>distilled water. It has no ions, sediments, electrolytes or anything, it's pure water.
Pure water is corrosive as hell. The only reason distilled water is recommended is it better to have a little corrosion every flush than deposits forming in the engine block.

This formula is not "limited by the heat exchange capability of the radiator in the car." This formula tells you the heat exchange capability of the radiator in the car (at least in part). There's no such thing as "enough to saturate the radiator." If you increase the heat transfer coefficient, you will be able to move more heat away from the engine, and you will also be able to move more heat away from the radiator.

Granted, it might be more effective to make the air move faster over the radiator than it would to make the water move faster in the radiator, but that's not part of the discussion.

If airflow over a radiator of a specific size does not change, how will increasing the flow of the coolant move heat away from the radiator?

Where exactly is the heat supposed to go barring the minute amount it loses in the tubing between engine and radiator?

>Granted, it might be more effective to make the air move faster over the radiator than it would to make the water move faster in the radiator, but that's not part of the discussion.
Yes it is, you don't get to just pick parts out of the system. As I said before, if you have too little flow then the system will overheat. But if you have enough to cool the system indefinitely, the flow is no longer the controlling factor. It's your radiator size and how quickly you can remove heat from the radiator, in the case of a car, airflow through the fins. Unless you have some kind of blockage in your cooling system, fucking with your flow rate to fix overheating issues is the absolute last thing you should bother with as things like dented or dirty fins, thin, insulating deposits on the heatpipes or a faulty fan will have far greater effect if you fix them.

>Pure water is corrosive as hell.

Corrosive might not be the correct term, but water is is an incredibly strong solvent and will eat through pretty much anything given enough time.

You forgot any copper and brass that.might be present in the system, not to mention gasket material, plastics, adhesives, and hoses