Antifreeze (changing blue to pink!)

[dave friday]

Morning all,how important is it to flush out all of the blue antifreeze before pouring in the pink?
Would a bit of blue matter ?
Ta.

[kevtherev]

It's very important that it's all gone.
They just don't mix.

[CovKid]

Flush it, fill up with plain water only (or rad flush if you like), bleed, drive 10 miles, come back, drain, flush, fill up with red

Thats how I do it anyway

[dave friday]

Thanks both,the change is for "bootie 3367" s van.
He's coming over to ours to do it!

[dbz864]

Flush it, fill up with plain water only (or rad flush if you like), bleed, drive 10 miles, come back, drain, flush, fill up with red

Thats how I do it anyway

how do you drain it all off

[CovKid]

The flush should wash out all the blue. Use a hose. Once you have just water in it, and drain as much as you can after the trip out, it doesn't matter if you don't remove all the water as you always put the antifreeze in first anyway, topping up with water until system is full. It will mix on its own. Good place to drain is where long water pipes (front to back) join at engine.

[California Dreamin]

The reality is that pulling 2 - 3 hoses off will only result in 50 - 60% drain. Poking a garden hose in each of these detached hoses then blasting for a couple of minutes down each will dilute and shift most but not all. Running several times for 15 - 20 seconds then leaving for a minute in between, whilst flushing will shift the remaining. Its a pretty safe method, With all that fresh water flushing through and short engine runs there is little risk over overheating but with the aid of the water pump, pockets of old antifreeze will move and be diluted down to nothing.
Make sure you turn the heaters on full and choose a hose that bypasses the stat.

Martin

[ajsimmo]

^^^What Martin said^^^

Sent from my B1-830 using Tapatalk

[dave friday]

We removed the rad with its hoses and flushed it out,then removed the heater feed pipe,the centre pipe from the head,and two pipes that go to the water pump,and flushed as much as we could .
We then put 8 Litres of G12 in and topped it up with water.
After that we replaced the cam belt and tensioner, the cam seal and the cam cover gasket.
Jon was last seen heading for the mountains!

[ajsimmo]

Cambelt? Diesel then - you didn't mention that bit! No need for expensive pink, stick with blue, would have been my advice had I known. Oh well, it won't hurt the engine, just the pocket.

[dave friday]

The reason for using g12 / pink antifreeze is that it has a much higher boiling point ( cavitation?) than the blue/ green.
Both Jon and I have had problems with over heating due to long hills,high temperatures and high winds,and strangely no where to pull over on mountain roads(Spain)

[ajsimmo]

Ah, OK. I'm on a PC now (phone earlier on tapatalk), so I can see your vehicle in your signature and location in the sidebar. Worth bearing in mind when responding on my phone in future!
Please let us know if the change of coolant solves the overheating issue - I'd be very interested to know.

[bootie3367]

I'm happy to report I made it back safely, it may have been a placebo effect but I'm sure I had better power delivery, there appeared to be less power drop off when climbing long steady gradients, in fact I didn't have to change down once the whole way back on the motorway.
I kept at a steady 2500 rpm and was able to maintain that on the climbs, made it interesting as on the flat the big trucks would pass me only for me to pass them on the climbs.

One of the main reasons for the change to G12 was the distinct lack of the old blue stuff, all but disappeared from the shops over here, an added bonus was the price of the G12, paid €25 for the 10 litres!

Anyhoo a massive thanks to Barry (davefriday) for the help and lessons and his good lady for providing vittles and zeds.

BiBi still gets hot coming up the mountain to my place, not sure that is going to change much without the introduction of an extra oil cooler, no heat issues on the motorway, the gauge stays steady on the led even on the climbs, it's just the slow uphills that hurt a bit.

Now to get to the rest of the stuff prior to heading for blighty!

Jon