i'm not getting too good of response in the cooling board and i really need some answers ASAP so i want to see if i can get a better response here. thanks.

here's the thread https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=250129

 

Check you oil, make sure it's not low, or has a funny smell. Last time I saw something like that I had oil & antirfreeze mixing together, and trust me...it wasn't a good thing!

 

yeah ive seen that before. Radiator was so rusted it was turning the coolant brown from all the rust flaking into it!

 

The oil shouldn't mix too well with the coolant...is there oil in the coolant, or is it a muddy/brown looking solution?

 

did u end up just buying a new rad or were u able to flush it out??

ya, i thought that due to the pressure that the coolant would always go into the oil and not the oil into the coolant. and it's like a orange/brown/neon green mix. it's really hard to describe. i think we might try and flush it again tonight or tomorrow so i'll get some pics this time. and thanks for the quick replys :hail:

 

Eek. I hope you were running antifreeze in your coolant system - it has rust inhibitors, right?

 

We tried to flush it out by putting some rust-eating stuff into it, but the radiator was so badly rusted that it just ate a hole in the side of it rofl.

we got a new one for 60 bucks. this was in my friend's camaro.

 

any other ideas???

 

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...93#post1919193

Its only rust. I posted something for you to try. If there were oil in it they would not mix. The oil would be floating around on the top of the coolant and it would make it a rainbow looking color just like if you spill oil on your driveway and try to wash it off with water.

Everything I did took about 2 hours, including 1 hour to let the engine cool off. It all cost me about 25$ thats the coolant (2 gallons) the flush stuff and the flush kit you splice into the heater hose.

A quick 10 minute flush and fill is just a waste of money because the coolant in the motor is still going to be dirty and make the new stuff in the radiator look red/rusty too.

Wesdog

 

You may have a leak in the tranny cooling lines that run in the radiator, if you have an auto.

 

I wouldent bother too much with the cooling board



Looks like this cars owner "sisters boyfriend" hasent serviced it in a very long time or had put some Bars Stop Leak in the system.
If it was a mix of dexcool and regular green af, it comes out more like a tea color with orange then green highlights. Thats if it has been in the system for quite a while. Now if it were just rust and it could be it would look about like ceader color stain, brown with a slight red tint to it.

Either way flushing is always a good idea and I see you are doing that. You should buy a prestone or some other brand flush kit and flush the system a few times with just water. After this fill the system either premixed antifreeze or buy a few gallons of DISTILLED water and mix the antifreeze with that. After a few months service the cooling system again.

 

he just got the car about 2 months ago and only started to drive it about 2 weeks ago, he just got his lisence.

yup we flushed it, and it's turning back to that rust color so i'm guessing that's what it is.

 

It will probably take a fair amount of time of flushing to get it looking like it should if there is a lot of rust in the system.

On a side note I had a late model 4.0 I6 jeep at work that had maybe 50K on it that took a good portion of the afternoon to get the system clear.

 

did u leave the car running until it came out clear? or did u run it for 10 mins let it cool the run it again so on and so on. all the while keeping the water on to flush it. like i can't see it being good to have cold water running into a really hot engine...

 

well last night we flushed it as best we could....we ended up taking the rad out and flushing it with hot water and a leaf blower (it helped ALOT, just hope it didn't mess anything up) and we put it all back together, so far it's good but he only drove 5 miles....anyway here's the pic of the antifreeze....

1. on the left it what was in the rad after letting it sit and cool down

2. on the right is after the car ran for a few mins to mixed it all up.

and after letting both bottles sit u could see the neon green coolant at the top brown in the middle and a redish brown crap at the bottom, like rust . (not shown in pic)

BTW this is after only 15 miles of driving after we did the last flush

 

Pull some freeze plugs, pop off the thermostat and flush that thing out good. Then use DISTILLED water / coolant mix 60/40 and a bottle of Water Wetter. Good luck!

 

well we pulled the drain plugs in the block and took the stat out and the engine ran clear in a few mins, that's how we knew it was the rad...so after an hour of flushing the rad every which way, we ended up taking it out (never relized how easy that was) and flushed it with hot water and it finally came clear for the most part. i'll find out tomorrow (well later today 3:30 AM eastern) and i hope it still good. we threw a new stat in while we were at it and the old one did open but now very well and not all the way. so i'm sure that had something tot do with the overheating

 

Pics are always nice.

But yes thats rust. Usually taking the radiator out and flushing it alone wont do too much since its aluminum. Aluminum doesent rust out. The rust is comming from the engine block its self. You really need to get the rust out, when it gets like that its a loosing battle. My brothers windstar is in the same condition. There are quite a few rust and scale removers that can be added to a cooling system that will remove the rust but its usually not somthing that is done in one shot and most of the time somthing gets plugged and needs replaced, heater core, radiator.
I'd check around marine supply stores and such and see what they stock for rust removers.

 

well we flushed the blocka dn it was fine...clean water came out the water pump and the drain plugs in the block....but the rad had ALOT of crap coming out, so that's y we focused on the rad, it was all coming from the rad. i have another pic of the fluid of it sitting for a day and......wow, i'll have to upload it asap

 

The heater core could also present a problem, as the coolant left in the core itself or its hoses could contaminate the new coolant you put in.

Although the heater core is a pain in the *** to remove/install, you might consider replacing it as well (and the hoses).

 

if you still have some rust problems with it, here is something else you can do instead of constant flushing.
get a remote oil filter setup, instead of hooking it up to the oil, hook it up to the heater hoses where the heater control valve is at, bypass the valve, when the filter gets clogged up it won't hurt anything as it will work like a heater control valve.

this does work, one of the accounts at work had some MAJOR rust in the cooling system problems a few years back on all of their vans. even after knocking out the freeze plugs & flushing the motor along with pulling the rad & having them cleaned & also flushing the hearter cores all at the same time on each van, the coolant would still look like pure rust in 30 minutes of start up.
this was during the winter so when they had no heat they knew it was time to replace the coolant filters.
once the coolant stays clean remove the remote filter & it's hoses.

 

I've had some old motors to doctor up to run, been there many a time.

Pull out the thenostast and open the cap, keeep flushing with a garden hose until it runs clear...have bud watch the temp, just in case.

Gotta get it warm/hot to get the scale out of the rad and the block, could be a long process...took me about two hours of this to get my Explorere clean.

Above ention of mixing antifreezes could be the culprit too...but flushing the pizz out of it is the only way I know of how to get rid of it.

 

Uh.....I think my post in here just like disappeared, wtf?

 

I would second that thought. I had a similar situation and even after having a brand new radiator I was still getting this problem. I had recently dissasembled my entire engine bay including my heater core. The nipples completly pulled out of the core itself, rusty water poured out and was leaking.