Re: Still overheating

[skerocdriver@juno.com (Shawn C Meze)]

On Thu, 13 Nov 1997 22:17:32 -0500 (EST) Gardiner
<ccastj1@prism.gatech.edu> writes:
>Gerry, I've never heard of pure coolant doing any harm to the engine. 
In
>fact, you're NOT supposed to put water into the radiator because _that_
>causes corrosion.  The coolant has a higher heat carrying capacity than
>water, so I'd suggest draining the rad. and refilling with only _real_
>coolant ie good stuff like Prestone.
>
>-JG


OK, fact is, pure coolant does not harm the engine directly. BUT, it DOES
eat gasket material when its not diluted. (Funny, huh!) So its not a good
idea to use straight coolant alone. It also doesn't have the cooling
properties as water but it does have a higher boiling point than water.
In fact, water is a much better conductor of heat. (Ah, my 8 years worth
of auto shop are paying off BIG now!!)

Pure water alone does promote corrosion. So even tho its a good conductor
of heat, its not practical to use in a daily driver such as ours. 

So, that leaves us with a mix of the 2 fluids. What's recommended is a
50-50% mix. It doesn't have to be perfect. 70-30% mixes are also
recommended in certain climates. (This is about what I have I think.)

They used to say to only use distilled water. Then suddenly our water all
over the US got good or something because now they're saying its ok to
use? WTF? Whatever. Since regular tap water does have minerals which
WILL, over time, deposit to the block (Think of it as the artery blocking
plaque in our cooling system.) If you love your car, and I know you do,
use distilled or at the very least, filtered water. 


              Shawn Meze
86' Jetta GLi           82' Scirocco GTi
The Fastest, Quickest, Cleanest and
best looking Scirocco in all of San Diego!
http://www2.netcom.com/~trnsfrma/vws.html
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