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Bulletproofed in 2010 including new OEM oil cooler and coolant filter. Just before the work was done, I did a very thorough coolant flush using VC9, distilled water, etc and refilled with Cat ELC/distilled water mix. Been running great ever since. I've been changing the coolant filter w every oil change and saw some casting sand at first but none for the past couple of years. That tells me coolant system is pretty clean ?
My deltas have always been great, but lately I've noticed that they are creeping up slightly. Never over 15 (except sometimes towing up long hills).
So if my coolant system is pretty clean, maybe I'm getting a slight buildup (slime, calcium ?) on the water side of the oil cooler. If there's no major sludge to break loose and plug the passages, would it hurt to do a VC9 flush as a maintenance item, hoping that it would scour out the water side of the oil cooler, get the deltas back down to where they were originally and prolong the life of the oil cooler ?
VC9 is a product for desolving iron oxide, of which flakes not fully desolved will get trapped in the oil cooler passages. Do you feel that there is rust coloration in the coolant? Hard to tell when it's coloration is on the red spectrum.
You could flush but you can stopup a working cooler,remember its a bigger filter itself trapping stuff, now if you can backflush the cooler itself youd be ahead of the game, i use vinegar myself, works great and no problems but i can backflush my cooler itself so nothing gets pushed thru it and goes solid,if i did not have the backflush hose on mine i would not be putting stuff thru it to do maint with. Your filter should show you the condition of your system, cut it open and look for stuff like a gel or sands or black specs[hose breaking down or water pump impeller pieces].
VC-9 is analogous to Fleetguard Restore+ and as Jack said works on corrosion and scale. Fleetguard Restore is advertised as a silcate remover, basically a detergent on steroids. I would use Restore without much concern, but not VC-9/Restore+.
But before that. I'd drain the coolant out and save it to put back. Pull and check some stuff, like the upper and lower rad hoses, the heater line, the EGR cooler outlet cover on the oil cooler housing. Look for signs of build up first. If it's particles like casting sand or a bunch of junk that stayed trapped in the top of the radiator last time, it might be no chemical makes a difference.
You might also check to top tank of the radiator for any scale. It also
acts like a filter and will hold crud and solwly let it loose to plug a cooler.
Thanks for the replies.
A couple of suggestions involved checking the top of the radiator tank for left over crud.
Is there a way to do that easily ? Seems like it would involve disassembling the radiator ?
As others have mentioned, VC-9 is an iron cleaner and will clean rust, scale, and deposits of that kind from the cooling system. VC-9 will not, however, dissolve and remove gel silicates. This is what Restore is for, it dissolves gel silicates and what VC-9 isn't designed to clean.
This is why you use Restore then Restore+, if done correctly, you'll have ridiculously low deltas and an efficient, squeaky clean cooling system.
An important point on chemical flushes. After the chemicals have done their job, flush the snot out of it to make sure all the chemical products have been removed. Just draining and splashing a few bottles of distilled through it isn't enough. Once the cleaning procedure is done get all the chemicals out of it, don't forget the degas bottle and heater core. And then get fresh coolant back in it quickly.
11-08-2016, 01:14 PM
