coolant

[George Selby]

At 12:14 AM 5/5/03, you wrote:
>Further, one need not hunt for "vapor distilled" water- deionized or
>distilled(any method) is fine- you're just looking for very low
>mineral content.  Additionally, not everyone should mix to 50/50.
>Mix according to the temperature chart on the bottle, as 50/50
>protects down to -37 C according to my Pentosin coolant bottle.  It
>doesn't even remotely get that cold here in MA, so I mixed more like
>1:2 (good for -20 degrees C).


I used to think this way, too, until earlier this year.  I live in Eastern
NC, it it very rarely drops below 25 degrees (F) here, and it has never
gotten below 15 degrees that I can remember.  So I add a minimal amount of
anti-freeze, just enough to turn it green, and providing protection to
around 10 degrees.  Well earlier this year, it got down to 2 degrees here
(much to my surprise.)  When I got home from work that night (at 2 am,) 1/2
of the cars (around 6 that I had to save) in my yard were starting to
freeze over.  One had frozen over.  I had to start them all up, drain some
water out of each cars radiator once the slush melted, and refill each with
the 50/50 mix (which I determined with a anti-freeze check gauge.)  This
sure was fun at 3 o'clock in the morning on the coldest night that I can
remember.  By some miracle, all the vehicles were OK,  the one that froze
over I had fortunately just installed new freeze plugs into it late last
year, so they popped out before any damage was done.

Another reason you may wish to consider the 50/50 mix all the time:  you
never know when you might have to leave your local environs and go at a
moments notice to a significantly colder/warmer location.  This is more of
a problem in North America than in most markets, as we have greatly varied
climatic conditions, and the roads to take us to them at a whim.

George Selby
gselby4x4 at earthlink.net