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Flushing out radiator sealer

F

fixerupper

Well-known Member
An old military generator from the late 40's with a Willys engine I'm working on has had some kind of gunk poured in the radiator at some time. I assume it's a sealer of some sort. The bottom side of the radiator cap was coated with the brown greasy stuff and
the rad cores have little chunks of it stuck in the tops of the cores. What can I use to flush it out? It appears this thing doesn't have many hours on it, the hour meter reads 106 hours if it can be trusted. The radiator is very clean except for this gunk. Do I use vinegar or is there something else that will work? Thanks
 
Hmm. Someone here once posted about flushing a cooling system before and used something other than the over the counter stuff like Prestone radiator flush. I don't recall what he said that he used, but swore it cleaned it all out real well. Wasn't vinegar that he used as I recall. I wish that I knew what it was. As I posted down below though, I recently purchased a new thermostat for one of my Deeres and mentioned flushing the system as I have countless others over the years and those guys were, "No, no, no don't flush the system unless you absolutely have to", so I didn't. New thermostat, JD Cool Gard, and it's running just fine, so...no flush on this one. Wish I could remember what that stuff that fella mentioned in his post because one of my trucks heater cores is kind of plugged I figure and the Prestone radiator flush didn't do the trick as has on others.

Mark
 
If it is greasy, could be oil. Best thing for oil would be some type of detergent, like Purple drgreaser, laundry detergent, Dawn, etc.

Put some in with water and let it run at temperature for a while. Then drain and flush. If there is a thermostat, get around it by taking the bypass hose loose, or temporarily remove the thermostat.

Another method is to remove the radiator, turn it upside down and flush it. But if the radiator was leaking, it will probably start leaking again when disturbed. A new core will solve both problems.

At that age, good chance there is sediment built up in the bottom of the block. If there are freeze plugs, they can be removed (probably need to be replaced anyway) and the sediment scraped and flushed out.
 
Steve I had thought about removing the radiator and turning it upside down to flush. It’s not that hard to do, I’m just a little leery of handling a 70 year old radiator without causing a leak. The top of the core is very clean aside from the bits of what I call gunk sitting on the tops of a few tubes.
 
the thing is when the core get plugged its time to remove rad and send to rad shop for a boil out in a hot tank. this is a caustic solution. vinegar is pretty useless, hardly works to clean a coffee pot. dont know how to properly clean a rad without removing it as the solids need a place to go other than the block. when at rad shop any leak will be fixed. as that is something that can be expected on an old rad. you dont take your international tractor to a john deere shop do you, as there is people that specialize in things.
 
I agree with rustred on this one, better to take it the folks who know and let them do their thing. Gives ya peace of mind even though it might be a little pricier. The only problem I would have with it is out of the 3 radiator shops we used to have, we are now down to zero. Sad.
 
Agreed. Use the powered stuff that come in the box. We use it all the time on our diesel engines. Just make sure you get it all flushed out or you will the cap to find a dirty foam on top of your coolant.
 
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