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brown coolant

P

pipelinetrash89

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Location
Tulsa, OK
Ok guys, I was checking things out today and I opened up the coolant res an noticed the coolant was brownish black? I checked the oil level and it wasn't low. It doesn't smell like oil. Is it just rust moving around in the system? It's got me a little uptight now.
 
What is the coolant Glycol or Dex-cool and what is the color green/orange? Its been a while since I've seen rust but with weak green glycol rust was a brownish tea color in an old Ford. I've only seen water in oil and it was grey - ish.
 
Time to flush the system and 1994 used green coolant...
 
Yea, it was green. But I don't know anything about it, I'm planning on doing the cooling upgrades in a couple weeks. I just want to make sure there aren't any unplanned surprises when I get in there. I HATE how you can't see in the radiator in these things...
 
Might want to drain and flush. Maybe pull the rad and take it in to get cleaned by the pro's. Sounds like 112K mile green coolant to me.
 
Well red and green make brown on the old color wheel and in the radiator. Mixed antifreeze of non compatible types. Flush it, then flush it some more to clean the heads and block. When you do the upgrade consider replacing all the hoses at the same time. A little more pocket change but a lot of piece of mind. I agree with both the above, radiator shop clean outs are worth it, then good old green. People argue the dexcool but no one ever complained about the green for many years.
 
I have all new hoses for it waiting for me at home. I plan on pulling the radiator and getting someone to clean it real good, and if need be just replace it all together. I just have to get back home to where my parts are :mad2:
 
pipelinetrash89 said:
Not right now, I was a year and half ago. I was in Elko back then right now I'm in Salem, West My God Virginia...
Click to expand...

Fixed it for you!

Use green coolant because at this age and miles you will be opening the system for all kinds of reasons and won't get 5 years out of the coolant.
 
Ok guys, I was checking all my fluid levels because I noticed a slight leak at the back of my tranny yesterday. The coolant level was just a little bit low from the cool mark on the bottle, but my transmission fluid was just a little bit high. So my question is, is there anyway that maybe tranny fluid got into the coolant and turned it brown? Red plus green is brown, makes sense to me, just not sure of how it would get in there?
 
Gotcha! :thumbsup: Well I smelled the tranny fluid and it smells like tranny fluid, no sweet smell or anything out of the ordinary. I guess I'm just getting paranoid now :eek:
 
If you had a small leak in the trans cooled located in the radiator,,, that Could cause something,, but If you take it out, and to a Radiator shop,, they can check all that for you. that is the ONLY way to get them cleaned if they've been in service for years,, is a good hot tanking!
 
If you want to verify no leak just undo the two tranny cooler lines at the radiator then pressure test coolant system. If coolant comes out of the ports, new radiator time. The tranny lines are at a higher pressure than the coolant system so the trans fluid would go into the coolant, you would not have coolant in the tranny. You might however be low on tranny fluid if this is the case. It doesn't have to be very low 1/4 pint would barely be noticeable on the stick, but could tint the coolant.
 
Will L. said:
If you want to verify no leak just undo the two tranny cooler lines at the radiator then pressure test coolant system. If coolant comes out of the ports, new radiator time. The tranny lines are at a higher pressure than the coolant system so the trans fluid would go into the coolant, you would not have coolant in the tranny. You might however be low on tranny fluid if this is the case. It doesn't have to be very low 1/4 pint would barely be noticeable on the stick, but could tint the coolant.
Click to expand...

Any leaks would leak both directions. The second the hot engine shuts down you have 16 psi in the radiator and 0 psi in the trans cooler. Pinholes in the radiator trans cooler are common and the ruin of many transmission from coolant flowing into the trans on hot shutdown. This is 1 reason to opt for a new radiator rather than fix an old high mile radiator. That and the hot side tank gets brittle on plastic units.

To color the coolant the leak would be massive.
 
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