Heys guys just had my 2000 (built 05/00) to the dealer to pick up some coolant additive, they said it was ok to use Prestone heavy duty anti-freeze. Thought I read on hear somewhere something about an improved gold color coolant. What is the best for my truck and why. Thanks

 

I basically used Gooch's procedure. You can search for coolant flush on FTE and see a lot more. I used the Chevron Delo HD ELC which is good for either 500k or 750k before you need to add an extender to get to 1MM miles.

GOOCH'S COOLANT BACKFLUSH PROCEDURE.pdf

 

According to International, a heavy duty OAT ELC is the best for your truck.

Gooch's Coolant Flush Procedure and In-Depth Coolant Information

Skip the first post which delineates the backflush procedure and read the other posts I have in the thread regarding why ELC is best for the L99 trucks and newer.

Stewart

 

I use Final charge. It is like that used in the larger desil engines. No addatives and good for 300,000 miles. Been good to me.

 

ELCs (meeting Cat EC-1, Cummins 14603 and or Navistar B-1) are very popular on this and most PSD fourms. Most are good for 6-8 years or 600-1,000k miles.

The "improved" gold coolant is MC premium gold...it is the HOAT coolant Ford used across its entire fleet from 2002 (roughly) to 2009 (roughly). It is the same thing as Mopar Pink, BMW Blue and a few other brands...all of which are identical to Zerex G-05...which is actually made by BASF IIRC. Phew how confusing is that!

Anyways it is not a bad coolant either, service life of 5 year or 150k but requires the use of SCAs just like good olde green did in the 7.3 due to the thin cylinder walls.

Personally, I run Zerex G-05 and test the SCAs. ELCs sound great but I can't dump 8 gallons of perfectly good coolant. Maybe in 3-4 year when I am going to change my coolant I will run ELCs but for now gold is fine. I flushed my father's cooling system to Cat ELC and he loves the lack of maintenance it needs. Looking back I WAY overpaid for his coolant cause the Cat brand was 27 bucks a gallon and Primatech ELC (meets all the same specs) was 16 a gallon at fleetpride.

IMHO in a 7.3 either one will work just fine but most people go with the ELC for less maintenance.

 

x2 on the ELC