ELC switch WITHOUT chemical flushing

[neil]

My EOT anc ECTs are great and well within spec. Therefore, I'm just going to flush out my system well with purified distilled water...and refill with CAT brand or DELO ELC 50/50. I will also add a filter because it should have one regardless.

I don't really wanna mess around with spending the time and money on VC9 and VC9 Plus...which could possibly cause a plugged oil cooler after all the hassle.

What's wrong with my idea?

[L&B]

Worked fine for me, about 5k miles so far and the deltas have actually dropped a degree or two.

I would encourage you to use both block drains for every drain (Fumoto valves help here) as well as drop the lower rad hose to get as much of the old stuff out as possible.

Let us know how it goes!

[neil]

The truck has had two Gold drain/refills since new...the most recent being at 85,000 miles last summer. And without being "worked hard" I don't think the Gold was ever stressed to the max. When I did the 85000 refill I didn't pull the drain on the starter side, or the lower hose.

Do I have to remove the starter to remove the right block drain? Sure looks like it if I remember correctly.

I know that a chemical flush may be the "best" way to go to get a clean start...but I've seen people switch coolants before on big trucks and never give a second thought past just draining and refilling without even doing a water flush. They never had any problems.

While I'm running pure water to dillute out the Gold...is there any attention I should give the water pump at 88,000 miles? Aren't they prone to failure? Seems like I remember that the impellers can come off the shaft.

[L&B]

Yes, the starter needs to come off to access the RH block drain. Upper starter bolt is annoying. I like the Fumoto valves because you shouldn't need to drop the starter again, unless it fails. Mine had visibly darker material coming out of the RH block drain; flow through the lower jacket is slow, and stuff can easily accumulate there. Edit: The contribution from dropping the lower rad hose is relatively minor; but I think that the block drains are much more important.

I debated replacing my water pump with the BPD unit when I was into it for the coolant change and egr delete. Decided against it because there's no evidence that mine's impaired (towing heavy for about 3k miles, it cooled well) and the number of water pump failures seems to be fairly low relative to the other major issues. It could also be that some of the impeller separations are related to trying to pump gelled coolant.

[Qholic]

I'm about to do a flush without the chemicals but I was also thinking of using my wet/dry shop vac to suck out any excess H20 anybody have any thoughts on this one way or another?