I’m new to 6.0s but helping out my father in law. I drained coolant (front radiator drain and drivers side block plug-used fumoto valve, replaced degas bottle with new one, and have flushed for some time. On my most recent drain and now fill I started putting in distilled water... well only 3 gallons went in before it was full at degas. I let run for 15 min with cap off and it hasn’t gone down at all.
Any idea what is going on or how I could get air out other than what I did.
seems like MORE coolant should have drained than 3 gallons with both rad drain and drivers block drain open. I mean I have to add 3.5 gallons of concentrate on last fill and that won’t even fit if this keeps up....

 

I always do the flush / backflush with removed thermostat.

 

Yeah I actually installed one of the XDP\fixur6 back flush valves. I suspect the thermostat was my problem. I just took it for a long drive got it up to temp and it’s flowing a lot better now. I drained while it was still hot and the heater on. No problem now. This was the first flush on my father-in-law‘s 2003… It was nasty... have a Delta of 8-10F now though! 👍🏻
Christmas present...

 

I always flush my system with the thermostat removed. If I don't know the history of the thermostat, I replace it. I flush with deionized water. In my opinion, distilled water was used before we had access to purified water. I buy about 30 gallons of DI water for coolant flushes at .30 a gallon. If someone has any scientific rebuttal for DI water, I am open to hearing about it. I put 40,000 miles on my 6.0 using DI for the flush. I put 9k on my 5.4 van using DI.

Growing up, we drank right from the tap. Never gave it a second thought. However, when filling the radiator, we used distilled water. We had our own de-humidifier at home and saved the water for ironing and radiators.

 

It's your choice but I've always used distilled simply because it does not contain any minerals or contaminants to cause erosion in the coolant system.
Heres a link explaining the difference. https://www.uswatersystems.com/deion...istilled-water

 

After the initial flush, I did 4 with distilled, then filled with ELC and topped off with distilled.

 

The issue with using DU water is that it's very active and it tries to rebalance it's chemistry.
So it is more likely to pull metals or other things out of where ever it can get them from.
Distilled water is not active in the same way.

One very good use of DI water is a final rinse after washing a car that tends to spot. You can
use the DI and not even have to hand dry it and you will not get any spots on the glass or paint.

Back to the OP issue. He should of pulled both block drains as there is carryover from the banks
and if you leave the passenger side plug in you will get all the crap that was not removed in your
fresh coolant.

I like the way that Srmastertech does the flush. Both plugs out and garden hose in the degas with
engine running and romp on it every now and then. You blow a lot of the crud out that way. I do a
few other steps.I pull the heater core line off and blow air through it to remove that water. You
don't even need a compressor to blow the water out. I thin do a final few cycles with distilled
water.Then I remove the top radiator hose and stick the video borescope in there and check for
any crap that might be still there. Once all that is done I put in the undiluted coolant and top off with distilled.

What I do for filling is use a tool called Radvac. It pulld a vacuum in the cooling system and you
then drop a hose into the stuff you putting in and it will suck it in. This helps remove any air in the system.

 

I always used both drain plugs on my 6.0 too. I installed Fumato valves. I like your idea of flushing the heater core. Never thought of that. I never thought of using my boroscope. Flushing the cooling system is so basic and yet so many folks drain only the radiator leaving nearly half of the old junk in the system.

 

That's a great article. No doubt that distilled water has fewer minerals than DI water. I have not seen any scientific studies showing one is better than the other for automotive applications. Most people flush with the garden hose and fill with distilled water. The garden hose water leaves plenty of undesirable material behind. I flush with the garden hose, rinse and fill with DI water. At the end of the day, it's probably the same.

 

CAT has specifications for the water that is added to their EC-1 rated coolant:

Chlorides- 40 ppm
Sulfate - 100 ppm
Total Hardness - 170 ppm
Total Dissolved Solids 340 ppm
pH - 5.5 to 9.0
There is also an organics spec, but it probably isn't an issue.

Most water you get will provide you with a label that lists contained concentrations of the above parameters (or you can find this info on-line).

Many, or even most, gallon size bottles of de-ionized water will meet the CAT EC-1 spec.

The real issue to watch for is the Total Dissolved Solids. Colloidal silica will not be removed by ion exchange (it will be removed by distillation) but will contribute to Total Dissolved Solids.

 

For full disclosure I knew full well about the passenger block plug but it was too much of a PITA to get to. It was part of the “ideal” http://www.ficmrepair.com/pdf/Powers...Flush_v1-0.pdf
and I understand that. Was looking for “good enough and better than where at now”.... I did install a fumoto on the drivers side. If I would have done the passenger I would have done one there too. I would have filled with a vacuum filler IF I had access to one but I had to do ALL of this at my FIL with limited tools and a favor compared to just a drain and fill he had planned... I installed back flush kit, flushed with tap, then did numerous full flushes with distilled (which I got up to full temp each time) and it was very clear when I did last fill..Did I get everything.. I had no illusion I would. Did I DRASTICALLY improve a truck that had NEVER had its coolant changed and left him with a delta of 8-10F. Yes. Did I also discuss with him that is wasn’t perfect but significant better than his current situation, and that we will re-evaluate and possibly do later again and for him change out the coolant filters I installed and left extras for him. Yes.
Could it have been faster and more efficient absolutely. Next time.

 

Deleted as posted twice

 

I don't think the guys were trying to slight you. I think they where shareing the correct way and or the way they think is Wright for the readers of the post. This post will help a lot of people who Really don't know how to do it.
I'm sure you did good job for what you where working with.

 

Why i posted the link.
all interested that haven’t done before please read.
Or go to tech folder.

I know it may have come across as I felt slighted but I also wanted to make sure that people understood that the ideal is not necessarily the only way particularly if you have reasoning to do it a different way but certainly the way to recommend it from start.

 

I hundred percent agree with a discussion about DI or RO water. I deal with that stuff all the time at work in the research industry and it will absolutely destroy things. Tough on stuff particularly metals as discussed.