Cooling system fixed

Well I finally got around to working on the cooling system and she seems to be working like she's supposed to. First I drained the coolant and added a gallon of vinegar and distilled water. Ran that a few days and drained the stinky mess. Then I mixed up some baking soda water and ran that for a week to take care of the acid. The amount of crap that came out was amazing. I flushed it several times until the water was clean. Then I put in a stock t-stat and rad cap from the dealer, put the stock clutch fan and a new shroud on and gave it a go. Well so far it hasn't gotten above thermostat opening temp and it has been in the 90's. Big test will be when the temps are above 100. Don't think that will happen again this year though but I'm happy so far.

Bob, you're the first person I've seen actually try to properly flush out the rad before just replacing everything. Nice job cleaning that thing out. Hopefully you can share those results with other poor suspecting souls like myself who want to just replace the whole system and still never really get the right results.

What was the mix ratio of the baking soda to water? I probably need to do this to my horde of XJs' and my 2 MJs'.

Excellent. Vinegar, baking soda, and distilled water; at least the price was right. Those mixtures probably give a better cleaning than the commercial products that are on the market.

You say you used 1 gal of vinegar, and I'm also interested in the mix of baking soda. I'm guessing it didn't take much, since the vinegar mix was already drained.....?

Runnin'OnEmpty said:

Excellent. Vinegar, baking soda, and distilled water; at least the price was right. Those mixtures probably give a better cleaning than the commercial products that are on the market.

You say you used 1 gal of vinegar, and I'm also interested in the mix of baking soda. I'm guessing it didn't take much, since the vinegar mix was already drained.....?

Click to expand...

The baaking soda dose 2 things first it neutralizes the vinager and second it acts as an abrasive to clean the crud off the inside hard surfaces

I used the standard size box of baking soda that you would find in your wifes pantry (boy was she pissed). Then I disolved it in a couple of gallons of distilled water.
I checked the coolant the other day and it is looking cruddy again so evidently more goo is working its way out of the system. I'll drain and flush the system again see how it goes.