Coolant Color? (pics)

[RobertK]

I recently got my car up and running and in the process we flushed the coolant system out and refilled it with 50/50 water and regular (not BMW) coolant and 1 bottle of Red Line Water Wetter just to get the car running for a little while to make sure everything works good.

Well after about 2 weeks of moderate driving I pulled some coolant out of the tank and this is what it looks like.




Now my car has not overheated since I got it running though if you drive it for about 45 mins+ the guage shows the temp between half and 3/4 but never past 3/4ths. I drove it for about 30 mins today and the temp guage never went past 1/2. This just concerns me because this is new coolant and it looks this bad in 2 weeks of driving it 3 times a week.

It still smells like coolant.. no oil floating on the top, no smell of gas or exhaust, no visible bubbles in the coolant tank. What do you guys think? Does the water wetter make the coolant coloer look a little different?

[mspiegle]

I would have to say its either the water wetter or you've got "gunk" in your cooling system.

I recently did a TB/WP job on a car I just got, and there was rust/deposits/crap all over the place. Even after I flushed the system a little and put new coolant in, I pulled the coolant out a week later and it definately looked degraded. I replaced it all again, then it was ok.

[RobertK]

Should I go ahead and flush it now or drive it a little more?

The coolant system was pretty nasty the first time we flushed it.

[AdamF 88iS]

What color was the stuff that went in? I'd give it a good flushing. Looks like it may have had some stop-leak dumped in it before. That stuff is nasty for the whole system.

BMW coolant is worth the $$ btw.

[DaN]

Mercedes uses some amber colored coolant. It probably wasn't in your system, lol. Looks like dirty ass water.

[AdamF 88iS]

Mercedes uses some amber colored coolant. It probably wasn't in your system, lol. Looks like dirty ass water.

But it's transparant amber, not mud like that.

[RobertK]

It's like a rustish greenish color. The color of the stuff that went in it was your basic 50/50 bright green anti-freeze + 1 bottle of Red Line Water Wetter.

The reason I didn't put any BMW coolant in it yet is because I wasn't sure if I would have to flush it again since the first flush we did was a quicky and I didn;t want to put $30 of coolant in my radiator just to dump it all out 2 weeks later.

The stop leak theory wouldn't surprise me since I was told by the lady I bought it from that the engine had been rebuilt 1-2 years ago due to a blown head gasket. I bought some Preston radiator flush and hopefully that will clean her out tomorrow.

Otherwise I found that my engine temps are fine.. I never reached 3/4th after driving around today I discover that my temp gauge is screwy.. sometimes it jumps around but as soon as you tap on it, it goes right back to 1/2.

[streetknight]

imo it looks like what happens when u have rusted radiator.

[AndrewBird]

I would say check under the radiator cap and see what the inside of the radiator looks like, but...

I would drain it again and look through the top hose connector into the radiator. See what it looks like. It should be clean with no white oxidization or rust. Have you had any problems before with over heating? Build-up will cause the radiator to be less efficient and not cool the engine as well as it should.

[RobertK]

I recently did a bit of an overhaul with this engine over the summer. No prior problems with overheating with the exception of having to replace the water pump.

All the hoses, gaskets, sensors, belts, and seals have replaced throughout the entire engine so pulling a hose won't tell me much at this point though it did have some white oxidization when we were cleaning some areas of the cooling system. (ie. Thermostat + Water Pump)

[Mojito]

Well, if you want to flush corrosion out....
Dump some CLR (that stuff used to clean bathtubs and coffee pots that you can buy at wal mart or home depot) into your cooling system.
Let it circulate for a few days and then do a full flush of the system and replace with new coolant. That should clean out the rust, corrosion, and deposits.
The only thing to be careful of is if your radiatior has a LOT of rust in it and that's the only thing holding it together. If its that bad, the CLR can actually cause small leaks....but honestly if your radiatior is that badly rusted, you need a new one.

BTW Water wetter rocks!

[RobertK]

Got it flushed out yesterday.. used that Prestone radiator flush. When we drained it after running the flush through a bunch of black pepper looking stuff came out with it. Now it seems to be running fine.

[arsevader]

Well, if you want to flush corrosion out....
Dump some CLR (that stuff used to clean bathtubs and coffee pots that you can buy at wal mart or home depot) into your cooling system.
Let it circulate for a few days and then do a full flush of the system and replace with new coolant. That should clean out the rust, corrosion, and deposits.
The only thing to be careful of is if your radiatior has a LOT of rust in it and that's the only thing holding it together. If its that bad, the CLR can actually cause small leaks....but honestly if your radiatior is that badly rusted, you need a new one.

BTW Water wetter rocks!

I wouldn't do this if you paid me.

CLR is not made for cooling systems and is corrosive and will cause problems with seals and gaskets. If you could do this then you could run Prestone flush for a 'couple of days', but you shouldn't.

Use the products that are made for this.

James

[turnofftheradio]

mixing blue and green coolant will make a color like that. I had green, drained and filled the system with blue. looks very similar.