What coolant?

[lmorgan]

I replaced a crack degas bottle and drained my coolant. Right now I'm running straight water, which is fine for now considering it doesn't cool off here for several more weeks. I saw online that the Ford 6.0L could only operate on Motorcraft Premium Gold coolant. Since the nearest dealer to me is an hour away and my local mom and pop auto parts doesn't carry Premium Gold, does anyone know of a suitable alternative? I'm in south Louisiana, so cold weather isn't a real concern, but we do occassionally dip below freezing, so I believe in coolant.

[bfrank81]

In the reading that I have done running straight tap water is bad really bad. It will form rust inside the passages in the coolant system. Also coolant provides lubrication for the coolant system and water will not do that.

Use the search option coolant has been beat'n to death on this forum for the last 2-3 weeks.

[Dave]

Cat ELC Rotella ELC or Zerex ELC will all do as long as you get the non silicate versions

[topdwg]

Freezing is not the only thing you need to worry about. Running straight water is fine as a temperary fix, but I wouldn't run it for long. I've learned a quite a bit about coolant over the past few days and I highly recommend any extended life coolant or ELC, such as, International's Fleetrite ELC, Shell Rotella ELC, CAT ELC, Chevron Delo ELC, Peak Final Charge, Prestone Heavy Duty ELC, Zerex Extreme Heavy Duty, etc.

[jagular7]

With switching to ELC coolant, do you still follow the recommended type of coolant from Ford?

[Dave]

Originally Posted by jagular7

With switching to ELC coolant, do you still follow the recommended type of coolant from Ford?

No the ford coolant is not an ELC

Get a non silicate ELC flush all of the old stuff out and replace with the new ELC and run it

ELC is good for about 300k miles

[buc1096]

Make the switch to ELC.

[topdwg]

Or this...