the proper way to do a good flush is this way. first drain the system, then leave the drain plug open while running the truck and the garden hose is in the radiator cap fill, and keep running it for 5-10 minutes. then fill and leave the tap water in there for a few days...then drain it again, but this time add one 2 liter bottle of regular coca-cola in the radiator and some more tap water. the soda contains a small amount of phosphoric acid that will disolve some of the barnicles that are in the cooling system. then drive around like that for a week or 2 week with the tap water and soda...then drain and flush with tap water again and leave just tap water in there. then after a few days of driving drain it and put 40% green antifreeze and 60% DISTILLED water in the cooling system. Walmart has distill water for .79 cents a gallon.... and you should be good to go after this.....

 

It does not sound like a good idea to me to leave tap water in fo any length of time with no corrosion protection particularly with an iron block or heads that will begin to rust. Coke may be cheap but I would be surprised if it would do a better job than a name brand flush product.

 

it wont rust. theres no air in there and its gets hot inside the engine. many racers use only straight distilled water and some water wetter if they have aluminun parts in there engine....

 

Water is Hydrogen & Oxygen. Oxygen is all it needs to rust.

 

but theres always water in there anyway. you have to mix it with the antifreeze.... what do you use for a flush?

 

but would it be safe to have coke running through your engine?

 

yeah i did it. it just slowly disovles some of the barnicles in your system that have built up from the death cool.

 

I understand that there is water mixed with the antifreeze. But the antifreeze has rust inhibitors to keep it from rusting. Thise rust inhibitors wear out over time so that is why you should change the coolant periodicly. As long as it is not diluted with excess water the freeze protection should last forever but the rust and corrosion protection does go away over time.

When I had a dirty system I used to use Dupont Heavy Duty. It is a 2 part system that has a neutralizer because the main ingrediant is pretty strong. It is time consuming to drain, flush with water, fill & flush with the cleaner, drain & flush with water and then fill with fresh coolant but it worked good for me.

For light duty flushing there are a number of products that are available that are not as time consuming.

 

Unless you are a chemist you don't know what good or bad things it would do. My guess is that the major companies probably know what they are doing so you are better off with a product designed to clean the cooling system.

No coke in the engine for me.

 

i have had tap water in there for the past few weeks and coke in there for only like 2 weeks of that time. so far everytime i drain the system it comes out cleaner. in the begining it was coming out with an organe tinge to it from the left over dex cool but now its coming out more clear. and i dont see a discoloration to it from rust.