just about to do a coolant flush with restore, install a coolant filter, and new coolant. whats the best coolant to use? I heard that the ford gold stuff is crap!
any recomdations on a good ec-1 coolant? or should i go with a propylene glycol?

thanks

 

Welcome to FTE , I used final charge ELC from orilly's auto parts.

 

X2 same coolant I used

my spread is just as good as the day I put the new oil cooler in

how bad is your spread

heres the final charge

Final Charge Antifreeze Home Page

 

dont know what my spread is exactly at this point
i just ordered a edge insite cts...... i was getting the wrench light coming on so i took it to ford and they told me my oil cooler was on the way out.

 

Probably been posted before but check out this short article. Might be of some help to ya.

International Truck Outlines Benefits of Extended-Life Coolant

 

If they told you that the cooler is getting plugged, it prob IS. If all you are going to do is a coolant flush, you are wasting time and $. I advise that you check into an egr cooler and engine oil cooler repair/replacement also......

 

simply a matter of opinion not fact, Ive been running it for 70k now still no issues

 

X2 flushing your coolant is not going to fix your oil cooler its too late IMHO

Also FORD Gold dint plug my oil cooler either looks like casting sand got mine

heres my oil cooler with a 25*-30* spread



the screw driver point to the coolant path
notice how its about 80-90% plugged




WHAT YEAR IS YOUR TRUCK

 

my truck is a 2006. with 170 000 km on it.
im about to replace the egr cooler with a delete kit from BD diesel. while i was in there my plan is to replace the oil cooler and install a coolant filter at the same time.
wish i could go as far as doing the head studs at the same time but thats just not in the cards at this time.

i found a lot of information and opinions on the net about how the ford gold coolant is part of the problem and then other guys are saying its fine and of course ford says dont use anything but ford gold....

 

maybe you know already but your 06 has the square egr cooler and they dont hold up when oil cooler gets plugged I just wouldnt put it off to long

and If thats the case Id flush its guts out even stick a hose in it and reverse flush inbetwen chemical flushes

pull the thermistate set it to high idel with chemicals in it and let it go for an hour it gets hoter sitting there vs driving and will clean better

Iv been running Final Charge ELC for a couple months now and no problems yet oil cooler spread as good as the day it was installed

are you going to do the work

 

yes ill be doing the work myself so any tips other tips will be appreciated

 

Simple question, just want to be sure. The writeup on doing a coolant flush says buy 4 gallons of gold. I know that doesn't get mixed. I would assume using this, you only need two gallons of concentrate, and mix it with two gallons of distilled water?

 

no you need IIRC 3.5 gallons of the full strenght stuff

the truck holds about half the water in even when you pull the drain plugs drain the radiator ect..

get 4 gallons full strength stuff and you will be good to go

 

Read this primer for flushing: Coolant Change 101
And hope you're not one of the unfortunate ones, like me, that have a ton of garbage in your coolant system. If your EOT-ECT is more than 15 degrees then you do have at least some sediment, casting sand, scale, etc in your system. Then you may want to consider trying to backflush your oil cooler.

After a Restore flush, I found clear gel-like clumps in the drained contents. I didn't isolate and have them tested, but I'm betting those were silicate gel clumps.
I switched to ELC also. I got Fleetrite (same as Shell/Rotella) at the International dealer.

And yes, after flushing your system to the point where there is nothing but distilled water, your last step will be to pour in 3.5 gallons of concentrated coolant and top off with distilled water to give you a 50% solution. But if your oil cooler is clogged, you should consider addressing that before putting in $80 of new coolant.

 

I got the cat ELC for around $13 a gal from the cat dealer. The ford tech that did my oil cooler also said he was going to change from the ford gold to using the cat stuff. I also had the clear goop when I did my flush but had some yellow goop where I had a slight drip fro my filter setup. Anyhow when I cut the filter open there was hardly anything in it just very little trace. Also the oil cooler seems to flow air just fine I am wanting to play with it to see how it does with fluids. The EGR tube is also clean, so why I had the temp deltas is unknown, but now with the BP egr tube and an oem cooler the deltas are fine.