Cooling system rust... Evapo Rust safe?

Hi All,

I finally started the small jobs required to get my M215 ready for winter, one of those jobs being the cooling system. I had been dreading this, as it appears the previous owner mixed coolants (new OAT stuff with the old green) as green sludge was everywhere.

After flushing the system four times with distilled water (our well water is far too hard), the sludge was gone, and the water ran clear from the radiator petcock and the transmission cooler. Then, I found the petcock on the drivers side back of the motor...

After not getting anything out of motor petcock, I removed it only to find see fine, packed rust. Water only trickled out, even after poking and swishing the rust around with the magnetic end of a scribe. All in all, I do not think that the bottom end of cylinder 6 (at least) is seeing much coolant.

So here's my question... I am not at all keen on filling this old system full of phosphoric acid, citric acid, or the like, to flush the rust. In my mind, acids would only create other problems. I have tried the chelating (non-acidic) rust removers on small parts, with success, but have not yet tried it on a big project. Has anybody tried one of these "chelating" rust removers/dissovlers like Evapo Rust in their cooling system? Or should I just let sleeping dogs lie?

Other than for a leaking exhaust manifold gasket, the motor starts and runs well with no overheating issues that I can tell.

Thanks for your comments

Tim

Just because all posts need pictures, the attached showing what she (the truck) does best, providing a solid surface for chairs and for plinking cans while parked beside the camp fire.

I have pondered this myself. My concern would be for any gaskets the EvapoRust would come in contact with. Also I have never tried it on aluminum and coper parts. My concern would be for pitting of parts like the water pump and inside the radiator. I think a test is in order. Put some EvapoRust in a bucket and add a piece of coper tube, aluminum, an o ring and some gasket material. All the things it would come in contact with. Then leave it and forget it for at least a week. When you come back if all items are still intact then we have an answer.

Tim - in the truck dealership shops and here and at home I always use Liquid laundry soap. For an 8 gallon system I have used a full cup of LIQUID not powder good laundry soap.

Put this in your coolant as is - run will sufficient time - removed cap as a normal smart person would being cautious of the existing pressure and hot arse liquid . you get the idea.

WHen you flush make sure all is gone with the suds dissappear - on really dirty systems I have had to do this 3 times.

Its an irony as right now I am planning on doing the 43 and then fill with extended life coolant - and this is exactly how I will do it - I have never bought a radiator flush or cleaner in my life.

I'll pass on a tip I got from an old mechanic, and have used myself.


Amway.

NO! I don't sell it!


Amway's laundry detergent, called SA-8, is a great cooling system flush. It's got rust inhibitors built it, and it will do a very good job of cleaning out a cooling system. Can't hurt a thing in there.

Put a quarter cup in with plain (or in your case, distilled) water, drive it for a few weeks, and drain. Get the powdered kind.

I don't know if it will cure your rust problem, but it can't hurt, and it might help.

Just go to the Amway site and you can figure out how to order it. They will hook you up with a distributor so somebody gets credit for the sale.

Now you have me thinking... The laundry detergent would have been great for the sludge! Way better than just using the $40 in distilled water. The detergent may also help to break up the packed rust, especially if I pump the mixture directly into tapped hole right beside the cylinder 6... I like it!

I will not get back to the deuce until next weekend, so I will also try dropping some misc parts, copper tubing, a thermostat, aluminum plate, and a gasket unto some Evapo Rust tonight so that it will have a week to Do whatever damage it can for a week.

Back to the laundry detergent... Should I worry about dislodging chunks big enough to clog the top of the radiator? Other than an old sock, can you think of something that would work as a filter in the upper hose?

DON'T use laundry soap with bleach...

I use Evapo Rust so I am familiar with the product. I just have never used it in a cooling system that is connected and joined to other components by access of gaskets and such.

This being the case I personally would not use ER in the system fearing it would intrude itself into these areas where you did not want it. Gotta figure it will take off "blueing" from a firearm and all Blueing is - is a controlled rust anyhow.

ER is not a corrosive - so I cannot say what it will or won;t do interally. Go ahead Grasshopper - let us know how it works - someone always has to be the first.
(I am sticking with the liquid laundy soap for the 43) just figured you'd know not to stick anything with bleach in your engine but I am glad the member added this.

I'm trying to figure out what the problem with regular cleaning system flush compounds is? Are you all worried about the acid or base types of cleaners. Steel handles acids pretty well, rubber ignores it, aluminum etches nicely for a bit then forms a coating that ignores it. On the other hand the stuff you want out like the scale, rust, and white aluminum oxide fluff dissolve nicely leaving a clean surface for your anti-corrosion anti-freeze to keep clean. If you go the other direction and use the base type cleaner-sodium hydroxide or lye, you will remove grease and oil sludge, scale, rust and the white aluminum oxide fluff from the system, not touch the rubber and be ready to run your regular anti corrosion anti freeze. Either will work well to clean the system without destroying any of the cooling system. After that you can run some sort of water pump lube as well to keep the seals from wearing excessively. As long as you aren't running this stuff for long periods of time its not going to hurt your engine or rad. Clean out the system don't dissolve it. Once you've cleaned it out the amount of water in the system will dilute any miniscule amounts of acid or base that stuck to the nooks and crannies and make it pretty harmless.
One thing to think about with all the detergents you're looking at using is what they will do to the water pump seal. Clean all the grease and oil away and you're going to wear that part some. Whatever you use make sure you have some sort of pump lube in when you're done. Soluble oil works pretty well and comes in many forms. NAPA has a water pump lube and so do most of the others.


Frank

zout said:

I use Evapo Rust so I am familiar with the product. I just have never used it in a cooling system that is connected and joined to other components by access of gaskets and such.

This being the case I personally would not use ER in the system fearing it would intrude itself into these areas where you did not want it. Gotta figure it will take off "blueing" from a firearm and all Blueing is - is a controlled rust anyhow.

ER is not a corrosive - so I cannot say what it will or won;t do interally. Go ahead Grasshopper - let us know how it works - someone always has to be the first.
(I am sticking with the liquid laundy soap for the 43) just figured you'd know not to stick anything with bleach in your engine but I am glad the member added this.

Click to expand...

Consider what I've seen evaporust do to gaskets, I'd say no.

I've used a GM coolant system flush with good results, but be warned it's nasty stuff. If you have a marginal cooling system, it will make every minor leak into a noticeable one.

My experience: Free floating rust and surface deposits can be removed by employing chemicals and multiple flushes. However removing sludge from the block water jackets requires a dis-assembly and power washing to dislodge the packed mud.

There just is not enough circulation in the normal pumping operation to stir the packed down flakes.

Rick

I pulled the other jacket plugs I could reach, and there was little, if any, sludge and only small amounts of the powdered rust. All of the rust seems to be packed near the bottom (not sure how far up) of cylinder six. It looks like pretty poor circulation... The radiator is free of any bad looking stuff, so why include it and the pump in the flush?

At this point, I am going to push the flush (detergent then generic Evapo Rust) through the rear jacket port using a small diaphragm pump (my wife's lawn sprayer). I plan to let the flush exit one of the front jacket ports back into the sprayer. I figure that this will allow me to control the height of the flush in the block by pinching the return line. (My wife is planning to spend the day hiking in the Adirondacks so I do not have to hear about my chances of ruining her sprayer.)

Now, if I could heat the flush with a Coleman stove under the sprayer...

I will take pictures and let you know how it turns out.

sounds like a great plan can I watch? let us know how it goes

Well, I wasted an evening and following morning to prove RChalmlers3 to be the most correct. After pulling the plugs I could reach, I nosed the garden hose sprayer against each and cycled the sprayer until the water drained clear. Surprisingly, the back holes took many sprays, each dislodging more packed rust.

Afterward, I pulled the thermostat housing (with the goal of removing the thermostat) only to find that no thermostat had been installed...

After bolting the housing back in place, I ran the truck with detergent and got a little more floating rust out. Afterward, I felt bold and filled the system with water and two quarts of Evaop-Rust cooling system cleaner (the concentrated version), and ran the truck for 90 minutes. After another hours, I started to drain the water, but is was not discolored, meaning that it had not dissolved any rust. So I decided to leave it sit over night. Still nothing in the morning... I tried another version of concentrated rust dissolving stuff (Esprit?), and nothing.

At this point, I was bored with the process and decided to flush, install a new thermostat and fill with the green stuff. Pulling the thermostat housing to discover the same amount of barnacled rust as before confirmed that I had only removed the flaky, powdery rust through my process.

Summarizing, the Evopo-Rust did not hurt anything, but it did not really do anything. The best results came from spraying pressurized water directly into the jacket ports. Maybe one of the acid treatments would have worked better to remove the barnacled rust. Next year.

I like EvapoRust. I used it on a bare engine block with freeze plugs still in, and it did a better job than hot tanked. I flushed it before teardown, then hosed out as best as good, then filled with ER and let sit a week.. topping it off to filled level as some evaporated (don't let ER dry until you're ready to flush it clean).

I used it in my GMC 4.3L cooling system and it worked fine. No problems, BUT as with any flushing, if rust particles are clogging up small holes (esp in a heater core) it's likely to leak. ER doesn't do anything to aluminum or brass, but it'll dissolve rust particles that seal leaks. I suspect it'd do the same with iffy steel on head gaskets. My thought is if it causes a gasket to leak, it needed replacing anyway, but sometimes I don't want to "open a can of worms".

One thing about it is it SMELLS like rotten eggs when in cooling system, but is no big deal. "They" say you can leave it in for a long time, but don't do in winter as can't use with antifreeze (I think same with flush chemicals).

Corrosive or non-corrosive (new type) engine flushes clean the system, but I like that ER dissolves rust. The heaters with 4.3L GM engines can have problems (don't get hot) and i think it's when small head passages get clogged. My heater works better now.

I haven't used a "copycat" for engine flush, but there's an alternative concentrate to ER now. A $75 gallon of concentrate makes 16 gallons.
I just saw ER came way down in price... $27/gal on Amazon (I thought was $15/quart a few years ago)

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A few concerns. The solution was BLACK when I drained it, which means it's spent. It'd be good to redo it until solution not solid black.

You can't completely drain a cooling system. Would be good to "multi flush" until water is clear, so no antifreeze when add ER. The thermostat has to open, heater core controls (in a vehicle) need to open. Maybe doesn't matter with genset cooling system.
If there's a spec for cooling system capacity, you can drain full system into a bucket, then know how much water is left in engine. Adjust the quantity of concentrate assuming there's more water than you'd mix it with. The specific "cooling system ER type flush" probably takes this into account.

Rust911 makes concentrate for cars. Says not to run engine for more than 12 hours (because coolant has additives to protect components.. maybe not a big deal on old cast iron engines blocks).
.

This guy said he left ER in for a week.

Cooling system flushes are usually acid based. Phosphoric, sulfamic, and citric are most common and in order of descending strength.

Acid based flushes will not work if the system is oily. Remove oil using a non-foaming detergent before flushing. Cascade dishwasher detergent is popular for this.

Coolant corrosion inhibitors are film forming and cannot protect surfaces they can't touch. This means they can't protect corroded metal. It is wise to flush if you have a dirty system.

I've dealt with odd fouling in cooling systems where I am currently employed, (an equipment rental business) one of the more unusual was hydraulic oil in the coolant. (produced something that looked like miracle whip ) .
One of the best things I've found so far for degreasing/desludging a cooling system is a stout mixture of Trisodium Phosphate (TSP, sold for cleaning walls and wood prior to painting) and Borax. I found that one to one and a half cups of TSP, and a half cup of Borax, per gallon of HOT water yielded a good mix for getting the grease out.

Drain the system and flush, then add the TSP mixture and run it til warm. Let it sit an hour or so, then run again and drain. In my experience this usually got the system clean of grease to where if one needed to add some sort of rust eater/de-calicifying solution, it should work a lot more effectively.