Coolant acidity

[Rattlehead]

A little known fact is that not all brands of test strips work with all brands of coolants! A test strip will give invalid results if it is not the proper test strip for the coolant you are using. Go back to the Fleetcharge site and see what strips they recommend for their product.

I just threw away some coolant test strips as their readings were definitely off. Now I wonder how to trust the ones you have even if they are fresh. Any suggestions of testing on a liquid with a known PH?

 

[Bill W]

Thanks for the post houdel
I thought maybe I had missed a memo or something

 

[Jake0147]

3 does not sound right to me

Three is indeed way too far off of the mark to be in the proportioning of water and anti-freeze solution.

A little known fact is that not all brands of test strips work with all brands of coolants!

Absoluely. A good test is a very tiny container with absolutely brand new coolant (dribblings from the jug is enough if you emptied it all into the radiator) and an equal amount of water. That's enough to wet the strip and therefore to rule out anything that you or anyone could have possibly put into or neglected to remove from the cooling system. The coolant is brand new and pre-conditioned so you don't have to think about it for some time to come. Your clean sample can be considered a known good sample, if there's any doubt this would be a good way to verify your testing mechanism so that you know what you are testing for (and testing with) in the future when the time comes for maintenance.

 

[doghead]

I found reference to this TB in the -20

Use of Antifreeze Solutions and Cleaning Compounds in Engine Cooling Systems . . . . . . . . . . . TB 750-651

 

[emmado22]

Ok, life is OK now.

I got Napa Test strips, part # 4106. They test for Nitrates (PPM), freeze point, and pH.

Im now right on the money with all my readings, so the other test trips I originally had must of went bad.

NOTE: You cant use the NAPA 4106 strips with Texaco LongLife Coolant, or Dexcool..... Say so right on the bottle...

 

[TedO]

Bill W:
Ph is a scale from 0-10.
5 is chemically neutral. I think the 7.0 figure you use is in relation to living organisms. that is where they like to be, specifically humans. So, a change from there is acid or base related to our bodies.
This is all, IIRC, of course.........

good luck

As a chemist, I cant pass this up, even though it is a few years old.. In aqueous solution, which radiator fluid is, pH 7 is neutral. There is no "change" in going from living organism to radiator fluid. After all, the aqueous solution isnt alive. The preferred pH of living organisms is 7.4, not 7.0. If you take a solution from a living organism, it doesnt change from pH 7.4 to pH 5 as it exits the body.

But what you are interested in is pH 5. pH 5 is pretty darn acidic. It is close to the pH of vinegar.

 

[bsorcs]

Houdel and Ted0 pretty much nailed this. To take it to a slightly higher level...

For perspective, lime juice has a pH of ~2.2; Coca Cola is ~2.3, distilled vinegar [5%] is ~2.4, Bud Light is ~4.3, cider vinegar is 4.5-5, municipal tap water typically is between 8.5 and 9.5 [to protect the piping it flows through]. A shallow sand well I had in Florida yielded a pH of just under 5. So for what it's worth, Coke has 100 times the H+ concentration of Bud Light!

If you want to estimate coolant-mixture pH, you have to raise 10 to the negative of the pH values of the solution components, multiply each of these values by its respective fraction in the mixture, add the resultant two numbers, and take the log of this sum. Multiply this by -1 to get pH. Simple, right?!?

Using a city-water pH of 8.5, anti-freeze at 10.5, and a 50/50 mixture [** means raised to the power of]:

[(10**-8.5) X 0.5] + [(10**-10.5) X 0.5] = 1.597 X (10**-9) = 0.000000001597. The log of this number is -8.796, so the pH is ~8.8.
...half city water...........half antifreeze................resulting H+ of the mixture

If you are on well water, your pH could be ~5-8.5, depending on your aquifer. The pH of a 50/50 mix with pH=5 is ~5.3! To get either of these to ~10 would indeed require adding something like sodium carbonate or bicarbonate.

If you get all this, you get an ATTABOY and 1/2 semester-hour credit in physical chemistry!

P.S.

Per re-read of the initial post, his 'reserve alkalinity level' was measured to be 3...units not provided. This isn't pH; it's some sort of measure of acid-neutralizing capacity. pH strips are needed to see what's really up. A 'ral' of 3 suggests he might have been ok.