Purchased 1999 PSD, 7.3L, to pull 5th wheel RV. What an outfit, 6spd manual, stock, whips down the road in O/D effortlessly, don't know why any one would need any thing more, respectable fuel mileage too...
In reading owners manual and this forum realized I needed to check my coolant for additive concentration. Sounds simple enough....I live 40 miles out of town, wife was going in to town, called IH dealer, they had test strips on hand and necessary additive. set them aside for wife to pick up.....
The additive they sent me was an IH Case product, part # B91245, "Guards against corrosion, scale, foam,cylinder sleeve pitting. For all diesel cooling systems", per the bottle...
The test strips, and all that I've read here refer to SCA and DCA4, etc...what is this product, SCA DCA4, which scale do I use, also the test strips refer to Compleat Systems & ES Systems.....
I'm completely lost, what should have been a (in my mind,lol) straight forward procedure has me boggled. The strips refer to adding x amount of units etc, what comprises a "unit", one ounce, one pint....
Any help clarifying this will be appreciated.
BTW, off subject maybe, but have to compliment this forum. Reading the past posts and becoming familiar with my truck. From info in this forum: I purchased a CPS on E-Bay for $65.00 to the door (P/N F7TZ=12K073-A), placed same with location photo and printed out instructions in the glove box along with wrench and screwdriver.... got rid of the annoying door chime and key lock lever, learned that the alarming gear rattle in my 6 spd at low unloaded RPM's is normal...gotta love this forum....
I see many of the same people answering questions regularly, people of expertise, where do you find the time/dedication? Certainly appreciated.

 

My PSD came factory with the gold coolant that does not require testing SCA so I am not that familiar with the IH product procedure. You've hit the forum at a rather slow time of the day but someone will come along to answer you specifics shortly, I just wanted to welcome you to FTE. Lots of great info from good folks that are more knowledable about the PSD's than the majority of the techs you'll find at dealerships.

 

I'm not farmiliar with the product you are using, but it should say on the bottle if it is dca or dca4 and how many units per bottle it contains. Usually the content is about 5 units/16 ounces of product.

The procedure for charging the coolant in our engines with fw-16 is to add about 4 ounces additive per gallon coolant and then run it for 3-4 days and then test the coolant, you want to adjust the level to about 2-3 units.

Hope this helps, I changed to ELC coolant several years ago and have tried to forget as much as I could about maintaining my sca's, what a pain.

 

it also might be called vc-8 because that is what the ford dealer called it when i just picked up a bottle. test your coolant and add the additive if it is low. one 16oz bottle raises it .6 units but im not sure of the difference between the dca and dca4

 

Thanks for the replies, I've been gone for a while and was unable to get back to you. I still have questions, guess I'm dense..I have the Fleetguard 3-way test strips. They have a white section of squares on the left labeled "precharge", a green section in the middle labeled "Service" and another white section on the right labeled "Test". I'm guessing the object is to get a color match somewhere in the green? I see the very lowest in the green is 1.2 and the very highest is 3, can I take it for granted these are either end of the safe limits? My additive came in a 16 oz. bottle, how does that translate to units? Or just forget units and add till it's within the green range? All help appreciated...

 

I have a 1999 Six speed as well. Wouldn't trade it for anything.
What I did was get rid of that factory green coolant that you have to monitor all the time and put in Shell Rotella Extended Life Coolant. You must completly flush out all the old green stuff before putting in the Rotella.
Once that's done you don't have to worry about those additives. The Rotella protects against cavitation and other stuff for 300,000 miles. They also sell a booster package that you can add at that time to enable it to go another 300,000 miles.
For myself, I would simply flush and refill with new coolant at that time. It will take me at least 20 years to get that many miles on my truck. It's pretty much a lifetime fill for me.
It's also just as good to continue to use the green stuff.

 

I am new to Ford, but have been dealing with diesels in my motorhomes for years.
The "precharge" and other labels refer to commercial diesel filters with load of SCA balancers in them.
When you have such a filter and put fresh coolant, that is not SCA balanced -all you have to do is install "precharge" filter on it and test it after some time. SCA balancing is critical on wet-sleeve engines, while famous Mercedes diesels never need it.
Since Ford didn't install filters on their engines, I assume that SCA balancing here is optional? Would love to hear from high-mileage owners if they ever balanced SCA in their engines?
I've been using FleetPride lifetime (SCA balanced) coolant in my motorhome and this is what I am planning to put into my Ford as well.

 

BTW the FleetPride coolant is mixable with other coolants, so no full flushing is necessary.