[Vwdiesel] A tale of two coolants or my life and times as
a glycol-holic!
Shawn Wright
swright at zuiko.sls.bc.ca
Fri Mar 26 09:29:31 EST 2004
On 26 Mar 2004 at 7:57, Hayden Chasteen <dieseltdi at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Ever since I put my Caddy back on the road, I have been concerned with
> the temperature at which it runs. Not only was the water temp too high
> as far as I was concerned but also the oil temp. At times water temps
> would rise to just 1 white notch below the red and oil temps would
> reach 220+ degrees F. Part of this heating I attributed to the turbo
> engine running hotter but it was too hot for me. Now you have to
> understand that I have replaced the water pump, the thermostat (yes I
> checked it in hot water before I installed it and I drilled two small
> relief holes), the radiator (with a genuine copper one with metal
> intakes), most of the hoses, put in a two speed fan and fan switch
> (with after run) and yet the "heating episodes" continued. I
> mentioned this in frustration to my son (the "professional"
> mechanic...thank God he has a job and his own apartment now!) and he
> asked me which coolant I was using - red or green. Well, being the
> convenience enthusiast that I am, I had decided to use the red coolant
> so that I didn't have to change it so often. "Well", he almost
> sarcastically says, "that is your problem. for what ever reason, early
> water cooled VWs don't seem to cool as well with the red. My Scirocco
> and formerly owned Corrado both ran hot with red coolant. Switch back
> to green and your heating problem will go away!" Well not being one to
> question the word of a professional, I flushed the system AGAIN and
> used the green coolant. Guess what? The car now runs at the correct
> temp, it never goes above the first mark above the middle and doesn't
> even reach that unless I really stand on it for a while. And the oil
> temps that used to reach 220+ now rarely go above 190! SOOOO anyone
> else noticed this strange state of events? As I pondered how my son
> could actually be so smart, I remembered that when I put the 1.9TD in
> to my old 85 Jetta, I used the red coolant in it also and it ran hotter
> that I liked. I just put it off at that time to the larger turbo
> charged engine. Any chemists in the group could maybe explain this?
> BTW, I used the same mixture of green and red with water in the
> radiators (50/50 or very close) so the variable is only red verses
> green. Talk amongst yourselves and make comment. At this point I am
> baffled. Hayden
Interesting... my old TD used to run quite hot also, even after I replaced the rad with
the larger A/C version. I just assumed it had more to do with the worn int shaft
bearings and resulting low oil pressure causing more friction under load. I never
even considered the coolant could have a role, but I did start using orange stuff
about 5 years ago, after having excellent results with it in my '88 Westy 2.1L wbx.
The waterboxer engine does well with it - I've never seen the gauge rise about 2/3,
even on long slow hill climbs.
--
Shawn Wright
http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright
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