What antifreeze should I use for my Pinto

[James Doulton]

I was chatting to a colleague about my Melos (I do work some of the time but chatting about kitcars helps to establish a common interest and is an important part of team building), anyway I was telling him about the Wondaweld that I had used to seal my leaking core plug and that I was intending to drain it tonight and replace it with antifreeze. He said that I should make sure that I don't use red antifreeze, only the blue stuff. He reckoned that the red stuff is more acidic and will eat through my rubber hoses. That's a bummer as I just bought 5 litres of the stuff from Halfords. Is he right?

[Dave Adams]

Your link also says its ok to add water. its just not recommended for best practice.

[Big Vern]

Whist this is true the'bubbles' that attach to the cylinder wall sides of the coolant jacket start to form well below the boiling point, just look in a saucepan when you next heat up water, These bubbles prevent heat transfer and since they cannot be reliably controlled the effect on cylinder heat rejection thus becomes more unstable, on older engines it doesn't really matter but with modern/future IC engines it will become critical. I agree there is no point in wasting your money putting this stuff in your boat anchor engine after all it doesn't run at nearly as high a temperature nor does it need to so waterbased coolant is fine.

[Dave Taylor]

Just bought some dehydrated water, anyone know what I can use to re hydrate it?

[28ullkq4hau58]

southern ,beer, is the nearest thing you,lle find to water ,,pmsl,,

what ever you do ,DO NOT USE, northern beer as its too strong ,,lol,,

[Big Vern]

Only use northern beer for making chilli or stake and ale :-)

[28ullkq4hau58]

at one point a few years back we had a go at running ,waterless, coolant in some of the f2 and ministox, we were building and running it was quite amazing stuff but the cost and the fact of loosing it on the track in a major shunt (BRISCA actually asked us to not use it) ruled it out after awhile,

i remember it was bl##dy expensive back then around £22 per litre

in the end we used something known as ,,water wetter,, (i can,t remember the brand name) that you added to the water/coolant in upto a 50 / 50 mix and this raised the boiling point by supposadly 20 degrees.

[Big Vern]

Yes waterless is expensive at around £100 per gallon but the theory is its for the life of the car. If you change the 'normal' coolant every three years as you're s'posed to then it works out about the same price.

Water wetter is an additive that is said to reduce surface tension, in theory it makes it more difficult for the 'bubbles' to stay attached. It doesn't raise the boiling point as such just helps to reduce the effects of 'boiling' coolant. Water will still change state at 100°C

[James Doulton]

I have read the article in Practical Classis (April Ed.) and it backs up my colleague's statement. It seems that the colour comes from the corrosion inhibitor used and that the red and green ones are not compatible with engines built before the 1990's because they degrade silicone compounds, due to their acidic nature. The blue stuff doesn't.

I got the same story from the lads in Halfords who seem shockingly well informed - it is unusual to find assistants that can give you any real assistance in this day and age but my local Halfords is one such place.

I am quite impressed with Practical Classics too, incidentally, but I don't understand why they'd have an article on antifreeze this late in the winter - unless it was just to answer my question! Spooky.

[Dave Adams]

interesting to see how differing strengths affect freezing point and that 100% antifreeze isn't a good idea either. me i use the green stuff but then i got 200L+ free so its why i use it.

[Adrian Southgate]

This waterless coolant has now come down to around the £50 a gallon area, problem being you need to remove all the water from the system before you use it. To do that they use a special prep which soaks up the water molecules... also £50 a gallon  so not that cost effective. As for not using it in a pinto.. why not?

The Leggy often gets 'warm' after switch off, enough to make the fan kick in and if the fan is powered off it will boil. There is no exhaust gas in the water, it has a 2 litre tank built into the system so it's not short on coolant but the system does seem to hold pressure even after it's cooled down. I even removed the heater matrix from the system but i'm still getting 'kettle' noises as it heats up. It does run a thermostat (82 degrees but it still does it with that removed) and a 'small' rad (that worked fine in the Sierra) so gents, thinking hats on, why does my pinto sound like a kettle, and why am i filling it up with liquid that essentially ruins steel components when left standing.

[Steve Kerswell]

If you are getting kettling, it could be something as simple as a dirty system, causing a small blockage. I used to weld big tubes in bigger boilers, about the size of your average wimpey home, the clean out afterwards was always a shock, what came out of brand new tube etc. Moving on, my Dolomite sprint engine, when rebuilt, was cleaned with a Fernox boiler cleanser, what came out was shocking. So now I always run a central heating cleanser first then when flushed use a central heating additive that keeps it clean and increases the boiling point. Pressurised system running a 15lb. cap, never get any trouble with it, runs hot, in the high 80's. I recommend a dose of x400 or x800 by Sentinel.

[Adrian Southgate]

Cheers Steve. I had a look at that sentinel x400 which is listed as a sludge remover. £14 a litre on evilbay seems a reasonable starting point. How much would you put in a 4-6 litre system and how long do you leave it in before (I assume) flushing it with the garden hose?