Solvethane ?

[Jean]

I was reading through e30 factory manual radiator section and it mentions "solvethane" in the procedure for flushing the radiator etc.

Did a search for "Solvethane" on this forum and nothing found...


I haven't seen this at local auto parts stores, is there another name for this or another product safe to use to flush all the gunk out ?

[browntown]

The UN says it's methyl chloroform, and it's discontinued. I'd flush the radiator like any other car, fill it with some good fluid, throw some water wetter in there, change the thermostat and hoses, and call it good. There's a thread on e30tech with a similar question from january and noone knew what it was

http://www.uneptie.org/ozonAction/information/tradenames/trade_name.asp?id=336

[lordofthewaters]

+1

Now I can't stop staring at your avatar browntown.........:nice:

[Jean]

Is calcium lime rust (CLR) safe ?

[jlevie]

No, but there are commercial cooling system flush products. Any auto parts house will have a selection of products for flushing a cooling system.

[Jean]

Bought Prestone power flush today so I am going to put the radiator back in and give it a try.

[jlevie]

After running the Prestone you'll have to flush the system until what you drain comes out clear. The way I do that is to fill the system with hot water, run the engine for about 15 minutes, allow it to cool down until I can keep my hand on the head, and then drain. Repeat that cycle until the water comes out clear. Allowing the engine to cool before draining makes this a more drawn out process, but it avoids shocking a hot engine and avoids the risk of a scald from hot coolant.

Note that when running cooling system cleaner in an engine and when flushing with water afterwards you should remove the thermostat for better circulation.

[Jean]

After running the Prestone you'll have to flush the system until what you drain comes out clear. The way I do that is to fill the system with hot water, run the engine for about 15 minutes, allow it to cool down until I can keep my hand on the head, and then drain. Repeat that cycle until the water comes out clear. Allowing the engine to cool before draining makes this a more drawn out process, but it avoids shocking a hot engine and avoids the risk of a scald from hot coolant.

Note that when running cooling system cleaner in an engine and when flushing with water afterwards you should remove the thermostat for better circulation.

Similar to what the instructions on the bottle said. If you remove the t-stat which line do you plug ?

[jlevie]

You don't plug any lines. On one of these cars you simply take the thermostat out of the housing and bolt the empty housing back on. On an M20 engine I make a gasket out of kraft paper and saturate it with oil to not have a leak since the o-ring won't seal without the thermostat present.

The advantage of filling the system with hot water is that you avoid a lot of idle time on a cold engine. That helps keep down carbon build up in the heads and shortens the time that the engine has to idle to get near or to normal temperature. With the thermostat out I usually find it necessary to block off part of the air flow into the radiator or else the engine won't get anywhere near normal temp.

[Jean]

Got it, I filled the radiator with hot water and the prestone power flush out of the car, shaked it and flushed a few times. Water now comes out clean but I can still see the insides of the radiator is coated with red/brownish coating... I got it installed back in the car and added another bottle of the power flush and took it around a block a few times, tried draining it from the radiator drain bolt and it's coming out dirty again. I gotta try what you said about open t-stat housing, I was under the impression it's a one-piece design that's not removable..

[jlevie]

An M20 engine has a separate thermostat and housing. The parts break down looks like:

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=1113&mospid=47309&btnr=11_0759&hg=11&fg=35

[Jean]

An M20 engine has a separate thermostat and housing. The parts break down looks like:
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...59&hg=11&fg=35

Yeah m10 t-stat is all one unit from looking at it, not like the m20.

[AndrewBird]

He's right:

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=1074&mospid=47302&btnr=11_0683&hg=11&fg=35

My sugestion would be to go to home depot and buy a T pipe fitting that you could replace the thermostat with. Something similar to this:

http://www.homedepot.com/prel80/HDUS/EN_US/diy_main/pg_diy.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0613833850.1166992850@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccedaddjjmigffkcgelceffdfgidgio.0&CNTTYPE=PROD_META&CNTKEY=storehome/pg_storehome.jsp&MID=9876&pos=n01

[jlevie]

For some reason I thought we were talking about a 325. You can't pull the stat easily on a 318 like you can on a 325. But you can work around that by running the engine long enough to get to normal temp where the thermostat is open and then giving it another 10-15 minutes of run time. Blocking off part of the air flow into the radiator will help keep the stat fully open where fluid will circulate through the radiator. Just keep an eye on the temp gage.