Coolant change. Does this matter?

fudge12

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I'm planning to change my coolant type after the new radiator goes in. My friend currently has access to a large supply of gold coolant since he works for a bus company. He currently uses the same coolant on his BMWs. Would changing from green to gold make any problems?
 
As long as it is phosphate free, aluminum safe, you should be okay. The BMW forum people go crazy if anyone wants to put anything but blue coolant in their BWM. (I have the green stuff in mine.)
 
As long as it is phosphate free, aluminum safe, you should be okay. The BMW forum people go crazy if anyone wants to put anything but blue coolant in their BWM. (I have the green stuff in mine.)

I hear you on that one. Lol.


I believe the buses they work on are made by Ford, so it should be good to go.
 
As long as it is phosphate free, aluminum safe, you should be okay. The BMW forum people go crazy if anyone wants to put anything but blue coolant in their BWM. (I have the green stuff in mine.)

I can't remember why, but one evening long ago I remember finding myself on a BMW forum and they were literally planing places to meet and physically beat each other over a correct coolant dispute for some nothing special BMW. Those guys were crazy serious.

I almost registered just to troll.
 
I can't remember why, but one evening long ago I remember finding myself on a BMW forum and they were literally planing places to meet and physically beat each other over a correct coolant dispute for some nothing special BMW. Those guys were crazy serious.

I almost registered just to troll.

Oh you should have. "Hello, I have an 850csi and had to replace the water pump. I didn't have any antifreeze, but when you put salt in water it raises the boiling point and lowers the freezing point of water, so I put a couple of cans of Morton's salt in my radiator with some water. I didn't notice until after that it was salt with iodine, does anyone think the iodine will cause my car any problems?" :)
 
isn't coolant... coolant? As far as i know (and i don't know much) the color of the coolant just indicates life expectancy and what temps it could handle. Isn't that all to it?
 
isn't coolant... coolant? As far as i know (and i don't know much) the color of the coolant just indicates life expectancy and what temps it could handle. Isn't that all to it?

The important thing for us (and BMW) is that it be aluminum safe.
 
I can't remember why, but one evening long ago I remember finding myself on a BMW forum and they were literally planing places to meet and physically beat each other over a correct coolant dispute for some nothing special BMW. Those guys were crazy serious...

This is why I dropped out of a couple of BMW forums. There's way to much BMW worship going on.
 
isn't coolant... coolant? As far as i know (and i don't know much) the color of the coolant just indicates life expectancy and what temps it could handle. Isn't that all to it?

The important thing for us (and BMW) is that it be aluminum safe.

No matter what though, stay far, far away from Dexcool, otherwise known as the Orange stuff, Deathcool and orange Jell-O. When that stuff gets air in the cooling system it turns into a highly corrosive acidic sludge that will actually start eating the engine from the inside out. If you're lucky you see the sludge on a coolant check and clear it out. If you aren't lucky you discover it when the engine starts burning coolant, and when you pull the engine down you find that the metal was etched along the gaskets between the cooling and combustion paths.

Here is a head damaged by that crap.
 
wow why would anyone use that crud in their cars cooling system? Might as well throw in some bleach diluted with salt water.

Tomorrow is the big day when I takle this radiator. Does anyone have a writeup on how to remove and reinstall it?
 
wow why would anyone use that crud in their cars cooling system? Might as well throw in some bleach diluted with salt water.

Tomorrow is the big day when I takle this radiator. Does anyone have a writeup on how to remove and reinstall it?


It's a easy swap if you go from the bottom. It's as simple as drop out the old push up the new.
 
I got as far as removing the intake, radiator support, and ac drier. I read in the PDF joe sent and it said to remove the dccv. As soon as I saw it say "remove the dccv brackets" I threw everything back together. Getting the fan and shroud off is the hardest part. I noticed the hydraulic line running to the back of the fan. Does that whole fan assembly have to come out?
 
wow why would anyone use that crud in their cars cooling system? Might as well throw in some bleach diluted with salt water.

It was in millions of cars and trucks before the problem reared its ugly head, and one of GM's major failings is they have no problem with putting out stuff that is proven to be substandard once they reach a certain point of development rather than starting over. If the cooling system remains intact then the stuff actually works pretty well, it's only when air gets in that there is a problem. This stuff would destroy an LS, considering how many air sucking failure points its cooling system has and how often the system springs air leaks.
 
I got the radiator in today. It was a major pain in the rear but we got it out without completely dismounting the condensor and tranny cooler. One mistake was leaving out the tranny cooler hose which obviously wasn't good so now I won't get the car running till tomorrow.

When we took out the fan, there's a gear looking thingamajig that fell out but we got it back in. Is there an explosion view of it so we can see exactly where it goes?
 
We'll we got the fan back together but now it won't spin. Any ideas here?
 
The key probably fell out when the gear fell off.

Is that the small little metal rod looking thing? If so, my friend pushed it into one of the holes that were there. (the one that it fit in.) Is that where it is supposed to go or is it supposed to go somewhere else?
 
It goes in the slot in the shaft, and the other parts have to line up with that.
 
Ok, so we got a replacement key (made out of a metal chad) and pushed it into the groove. Everything went back perfectly and the fan was spinning freely before pushing it in to the back cover. The back cover did take a lot of force for it to slide back onto the shaft and now i'm wondering if this is where things are getting messed up. Is the cover supposed to slide back easily onto the shaft or is it supposed to be tapped in with force?

Also, is the fan supposed to spin regardless of engine temps?
 
Well we got a new fan and still nothing. I see the reservoir hose goes to the trans cooler and then there's a hose coming from the cooler to the fan, then another hose coming from the fan to the pump. We forgot to connect one of the hoses back to the trans cooler and about 2 quarts of fluid came out. Is it possible that there's not enough fluid in the system that's causing low pressure? The fluid in the reservoir goes a bit lower if I leave it over night.
 
2 quarts? It must have been one of the transmission hoses you left off. You'll need to correct that fluid level...
 
Yes it was that hose. I can hear the fan pump whining as it approaches the 3/4 mark on the temp gauge. Yet no fans spin. There aren't any signs of a leak anywhere as far as coolant and fan fluid goes. Is this car supposed to have a trans cooler thefrom the factory?
 

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