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my '02 7.3L excursion appears to have a new, or nearly so, coolant tank on top.
it is clear enough, that with the sun behind it, the coolant appears Orange, open the cap and it is indeed orange, maybe a tiny bit pink.
I see a few smallish bits of dirty stuff floating on top, but it appears to be clean.
the truck is 'new to me', only 2500 miles on it since I bought it.
odometer is 174,600 today
EDIT:
don't matter,
I bought a new coolant test gauge, and the needle is just barely off the bottom of the scale....
Damn good thing that I put a Thermostat on the Block Heater before the 0* temps hit this month
Any kind of true elc will work in a late 99+ don't use it in a early 99. I have peak final charge in mine. Good elc coolant supposed to be good for million miles and doesn't require and maintenance or scx additives. Just make sure you flush it good when you switch.
Could have sworn that said pink before.
I think ford had an orange, I have only used green. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will stop by.
pretty sure any elc will be fine, I'm sure there is a lot of info out there on it.
I typed Pink the first time, then when I sucked it out into the glycol tester, it is orange....
I ordered up VC-5 green from the local parts store, which is 100% glycol.
does it have to have the additive package in the first fill, or just after it is getting old?
Don't put the green stuff in, that's old school. It's only attraction is that it's cheap, but then you have to put cavitation additive in it on a regular basis. Not worth the cost savings. Get ELC like is mentioned earlier and you are good for a very long time with no more maintenance requirements.
One more question, as the existing coolant is orange, and of unknown properties, how diligent should I be to make sure that is completely flushed out?
I do not know, how much coolant stays in the engine block, after the radiator is drained....
I picked up 7 gallons of Distilled water today, and as I had already ordered the VC-5 from my local parts store, I went ahead and bought it, as they special ordered it for me.....
our little community is lucky to even have a parts store, so we take "care of them", I ordered it, so I took it.
the CAT ELC stuff will replace that in the near future.....
and, do I need to get the anti Cavitation additive with the first fill of VC-5 ?
The thermostat appears to have been working as it should, the temp stayed Rock Solid all the way from Montana to Oklahoma, even while pulling a tractor over the Rockies at 11,000 feet on one over-pass
( well, at least the temp gauge on the dash, never moved )
I want to say I used about 20 gallons... or a Walmart-cart full... when all said and done for a thorough flushing and final fill.
Just avoid eye-contact making your way to the self checkout.
After reading through Gooch's Procedure,
I am going to see if I can return the VC-5 coolant,
that is just too much trouble to go through, and have to repeat it near term....
I will go get the Rotella CAT ELC from Tractor Supply and do it right the first time.
wish I had not been in such a hurry to grab some coolant....
worst case, I will just put the VC-5 on the shelf to use to put out a trash fire.
.
IMO, the best way to flush the coolant is to remove a block drain and the thermostat. Get a barb fitting with NPT threads matching the plug and install it into the block. Connect garden hose to the barb fitting. Remove radiator cap, turn on the hose. Start the engine, and fast idle, 1500 rpm or so, for as long as it takes to get what comes out of the filler neck to look like 100% water. Then shut it all down and pull both block drains plus open radiator petcock to drain as much as possible. If you want to fill it back up and run it with distilled water a couple of times that would be good as well. From there, reinstall thermostat and fill with ELC 50/50 distilled water formula. System holds 8+ gallons. After that you won't have to do anything for a million miles except an additive package halfway through, IIRC.
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