Adventures in Cooling Maintenence

[Castle Bravo]

So today I figured I would change out my Deuce's coolant. I'm a big fan of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," but the last few times I've checked the coolant, there was no hint of any color to it other than brown. There was some brown foamy stuff near the radiator cap that would accumulate sometimes. Kinda like whipped pudding. No signs of coolant in the oil when I last changed it, and there there was no sign of oil in the coolant today. Whenever I'd drive it for an extended time, I'd find brown splatter down the driver's side of the vehicle. I knew my radiator overflow tube was clogged and I probably needed a new radiator cap. I wanted to get it back in shape and fix the splatter issue.

I went about trying to unclog the tube by using compressed air, but that didn't work at all. I straightened a coat hanger and was able to clean out most of the tube from the bottom and top, I couldn't get the hangar or (anything else) around either of the two corners in the tube, and it was still plugged up. So I decided to use a pipe cutter and cut the tube near the filler neck. Next I went to attach a piece of 1/4" fuel hose with a hose clamp as a replacement overflow tube. But, disaster struck! Even though I was supporting it, the tube broke off at the filler neck.

I guess 40 years of crap building up in it took its toll on the poor piece of steel tube. You did your job, tube. RIP. Had to go the hardware store and get some copper tubing and solder a piece on. 30 minutes later I had the tube in place and the new overflow tube doing its job. At this point, I thought about how easy it would be to add a coolant overflow tank. There is plenty of room above the driver's side headlight. I may do this in the future.

With the crisis averted, I began to drain the coolant into a 5 gallon bucket. Having read just about every thread on SS about the Deuce radiator, I decided to go with Cranetruck's method of repeated draining and filling to clean out the old stuff. I didn't want to remove the radiator hoses - in my experience, messing with hoses that are not currently leaking leads to them leaking in the future. I have a very good tendency to fix stuff until its broken.

So I drained the coolant, filled with 5 gallons water, drove around to mix things up, repeat 4 times. The first 5 gallons I drained were pretty black. So was the 2nd. So was the 3rd and 4th...

Tomorrow morning, I plan on adding water until it comes out clean with the draincock open and the engine running with a piece of cardboard in front of the radiator. I probably should have done that in the first place. Once its clean(ish), I'll add the coolant and hopefully be done. Despite all this, it was still fun to work on the truck. And of course, its always fun to drive an Army truck around.

 

[gimpyrobb]

If you have gone this far, might as well run a couple gallons of white vinegar through it. Vinegar will clean out the lime and calcium deposits. Alot of guys run CLR(calcium,lime,rust) through the system, but I have found vinegar works VERY well and cost 1/6 what CLR does.

 

[JCKnife]

If you have gone this far, might as well run a couple gallons of white vinegar through it. Vinegar will clean out the lime and calcium deposits. Alot of guys run CLR(calcium,lime,rust) through the system, but I have found vinegar works VERY well and cost 1/6 what CLR does.

Gimpy, how much vinegar do you use? Drive it a while with water / vinegar then drain again and put antifreeze back in?

 

[Castle Bravo]

Here is a follow up to my original post -

The next day I ran the truck for 2 hours with the radiator draincock on the bottom open and the water hose from the house sticking in the filler neck. The drain on the side of the engine block did not want to open and I didn't feel like forcing it and having it break.

2 hours later, I was getting almost no black stuff coming out of the bottom drain, so I closed it and drove the 1/4 mile back to the driveway. I let it cool and drained the radiator again so that I could add the correct coolant and guess what? SOLID black again.

The next day I went to Carquest and picked up a coolant filter. I installed it (Pics later, maybe) and also put the aforementioned coolant recovery tank on. Both of these items went on the sheet metal above the headlights on either side. I cycled some distilled water through a few times to get the hose water out. Probably was wasted effort as apparently theres 40 years of crap in there too. I changed the coolant filter just before I added the final mixture of Fleet Charge. The first coolant filter was plugged with brown crap.

I will likely change the filter again in about 10 more hours of driving it. Observe where its at and then determine when to change it again.

Admittedly, a small part of me feels like this whole ordeal was wasted effort and money. It wasn't broken and I messed with it. That being said, I don't think its worse off than it was.

 

[G-Force]

**** Castle.......did ya have fun????? That's all that matters!!!!! I'd pull the radiator and get it boiled and also put a new thermostat in it. If its REALLY that bad you could pop the core plugs out of the side of the block and flush the crap out of the block that way.
Quote:
"The next day I ran the truck for 2 hours with the radiator draincock on the bottom open and the water hose from the house sticking in the filler neck. The drain on the side of the engine block did not want to open and I didn't feel like forcing it and having it break.

2 hours later, I was getting almost no black stuff coming out of the bottom drain, so I closed it and drove the 1/4 mile back to the driveway."

I just wanted to say that is one LONG water hose!!!!!!

 

[Westex]

Ummm..why not the dishwasher detergent flush, followed by lots of distilled water bottles (purchased at Wally World) then put in Fleet Charge or Global Charge coolant.