Coolant/Antifreeze

[Ray Davis]

There's the rub. Generally the green is the regular life, eythelene-glycol coolant, good for 2 years.

Some of the red/purple can might also be the same.

The trick is to determine whether or not extended life coolant was put in your system.

FYI, while having my first bus serviced at Prevost, they put in regular life, EG coolant (green) as well. I've never had any shop put in or ask if I wanted to change to extended life.

Ray

[flyu2there]

Probably the best answer about antifreeze that I found came from a large PACAR dealer, they sell and service Peterbilt and Kenworth, they have Detroit, Caterpillar, Volvo, and Caterpillar engines....buyers choice. They have several 55 gallon drums of Green 4985 Coolant, they then dump in the SCA's that the engine manufacture recommends that will "charge" the anitfreeze, be it Powercool 3000 or Fleetguard DCA4. Its all green and they charge the antifreeze for the particular engine manufacturer recommendations. The service manager did tell me that one of the most neglected things they find was the coolant filter which, aside from removing chunks of debris and scale from the system, also revitalizes and recharges the chemicals each engine manufacturer recommends. Obviously that leads to the coolant filters and the "stuff" inside of them...it must correspond to the SCA's that were originally added to, or came with the antifreeze change ....I never knew that! Changing out the antifreeze every year or so may be a bit of an overkill for our types of operations, remember the truckers put on sevral hundred thousand miles each year, if they like to eat. The PACAR dude went on to say that what wears out the coolant additives, remember glycol lasts forever, is the starts and stops....his final recommendation was to monitor coolant levels and SCA's regularily, when they cannot be kep't withon tolerances, change it out. Sounds sage to me..........

John

[Jon Wehrenberg]

DD Power Cool is Magenta (kind of red and / or purple), but at the seminar in Spearfish the presenter pointed out that colors are not an indicator of the type of coolant. They may have been at one time, but not any longer.

[flyu2there]

It is apparent there are a few renegades in the bunch, color coding wise that is...Caterpillar is at the top of the heap! I read a post not too long ago where Lew had to remove his pressure cap on the surge tank with channel locks due to rust or gunk. I'll bet his site glass looked like the Missippi River as well; trouble is, you could be spot on and mix a couple of off color compatables and you too would have a brown site glass. Stay Green as Al gore says....

[truk4u]

Some are missing the point! Not every Extended Life Coolant has the EC-1 blessing. Just go to someplace like Auto Zone and read the Extended Coolant labels. You won't find any reference to the Cat EC-1.

Why on earth would you want to full around with 2 year coolant changes (that you probably won't do) and SCA charged filters when you can safely do the proper ELC.

Lets just be sure to compare apples to apples.... Was I the only one at Spearfish other than Jon?

[flyu2there]

Sheepster!

You could run cat pee, sheep pee, or Michelob Light in your radiator for as much use as these busses get ,probably never see (although you may smell) a difference in wear or problems.

I am sure that Cat EC-1 is a fine product, go for it! The "true" green stuff is just fine as well. Sometimes we have to agree to disagree! Two year changes, kinda think that's a myth, on condition is a better answer....seems that's what the big kids do.

[BrianE]

Here is what we were able to gleen from our presentation at Spearfish (I took notes). This presentation was given by the regional Chevron jobber. Their knowledge of Chevron products seemed to be excellent. I agree with both Jon and Orren's comments in this thread, they attended Spearfish also.

1. Coolants that are a shade of red can either be extended life or not.
2. The only tested extended life coolants for heavy duty diesel engines have the Caterpillar EC-1 specification.
3. Green coolants never carry an EC-1 specification.
4. Detroit has elected not to produce an EC-1 coolant.
5. Mixing non EC-1 coolant with EC-1 is not harmful to an engine except that it no longer retains it's extended life properties.
6. Since Chevron now owns Texaco their EC-1 coolant is Delo Extended Life Coolant: http://www.chevrondelo.com/en/produc...ze/default.asp
7. Caterpillar developed and markets EC-1. They also developed a test strip and lab analysis system which EC-1 users can avail themselves to: http://www.cat.com/cda/files/87058/7/elcfaq.pdf
8. The use of a premix coolant eliminates water quality concerns.

Here is a very good article by Caterpillar for RV applications. Intended of course for Cat engines, it seems to be in line with what we recognize as good practice with our DD's. http://ohe.cat.com/cda/files/517742/7/LEHT9288.pdf

Bottom line is extended life or not, keep it clean, test it, keep it full, and change it at recommended intervals.

[garyde]

Another issue in changing the coolant. With RV's we have a coolant loop for Webasto and the hot water. If they are not fully drained, you will be mixing new with old. I had my valves closed when I replaced my coolant. The Detroit people didn't seem to have a problem with clsoing that off.
If your replacing the coolant every two years or so, thats probably 20000miles or less. Probably not a big issue.

[dale farley]

Brian,

In reading the articles and talking with others on the forum, I thought the general consensus was that it was too big a hassle to drain/refill the heaters, so I did not do mine the last time I changed?

I used the green stuff again, so I didn't make any significant change to the antifreeze. Can someone who has drained the entire system tell us how much trouble it was it to refill?

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I replaced a lot of converter installed coolant hoses on my last coolant change. I still had coolant in the system, and I suspect places that have low spots such as the HW tank, the bus air heat exchanger and probably some Webasto heat exchangers still held old coolant.

Since I really do not know the actual system capacity beyond what the owner's manual says, and I can't verify but I am assuming quite a bit of old coolant still remains.

But if I drain, empty, drain empty, etc. making sure the bus is up to temperature each time before I drain I am confident the old coolant that remains has been significantly diluted, so much so that it will not adversely affect any extended life coolant. I am sure there are vent fittings and low spot drains that could be opened to maximize the amount drained.

Changing coolant, even if the same is re-installed is a pain so dedicating a day to filling and draining seems like a good investment in time to extend the interval between changes.