Antifreeze

Any good way to tell if what I have in a jug is pure undiluted antifreeze or a diluted mixture ?

I thought pure would not float balls in the cheap tester. Been years since I tested any pure though. But I had a jug marked 50/50 and one marked as undiluted. They both floated the same amount of balls ? The one marked as undiluted appeared a little darker ? so I used it as marked and mixed it 50/50 with distilled water and made up 1 gallon. Well then I tested it again. It would only float like 2 of the 5 balls ? so then I thought it must of already been 50/50 and mislabeled. What really seems weird is since I only added 1/2 gallon of water I thought 1/2 a gallon of pure would be all I needed to get back to a 50/50 mix ? I went to the 55 gal drum and ran out some more as it definitely should not of ever been mixed up. I ended up putting in at least 3/4 or more of a gallon to get it back up to float 5 balls and the last ball slowly made it up to near the others. I tried 2 of these tester and got same reading on both. I was running out of bucket to add more so went ahead and put what I needed in the tractor. This sure seems weird ? This weekend I'm going to use another tester and see what I ended up at.

If you have a deep freeze I would put a sample in there with a thermometer, they're usually below 0. And, where do you live, how cold does it get? My tractors live on the CA border of MN, it can get to -40!

I'm in Ohio so we can get pretty cold. Sounds like a good idea that won't cost anything to try.

Dilute some to 50/50 and freeze both samples in a freezer. The straight will slush up, the dilute will not. If it was already dilute, both will slush up. Jim

Why not just by an anti-freeze tester? The things are dirt cheap and will tell you in a few seconds how strong or weak the stuff is. I've got 4 or 5 of the stupid things around because every time I want one it's.....................................somewhere........................and I just pick up another one. At last count, I now have three of them stashed away where only I know they are, so I can find one when I need it. LOL!!!!!!

They measure specific gravity, and will max out on pure coolant, not much different than a 60/40 mix of pure antifreeze and water. Jim

Bear in mind that "straight" antifreeze already has a certain amount of water added to it to keep it pourable in cold weather.

Get a refractometer and know what you have. Most float type testers max out at -34. A refractometer will tell with much greater accuracy to a much colder level.