Was wondering if there's a good reason to pay more and use premixed antifreeze or buy concentrated and mix it with deionized water yourself? Seems like you pay 3 times more for the water with the premixed. I just need a good antifreeze for a Perkins 3 cylinder with dry sleeves.
I mix my own using distilled water. Premix is more convenient, i think thats why most people buy it
It’s getting to be, that it’s actually hard to find straight antifreeze. The establishment decided to give us water and charge the same price. When pre-mixed first came out, it was cheaper, now not so much.
We always used concentrate with the finest well water from the well (there's next to no lime in it never had any kind of that trouble or coolant related problems) lately I've been buying 5 gallon buckets or premixed from cat because I'm a lazy.
My well has very alkaline water, should keep corrosion down.
I've read a lot of suggestions to use distilled water but on the jugs of premix, it says deionized water. There are also jugs of deionized water specifically marketed for use as vehicle coolant. Apparently the ions are what cause corrosion and scale build up. The premix is the same price or maybe $1 cheaper. I guess you pay extra for it to be mixed. Most premix is 50/50 but I like a little more antifreeze because it can hit -40 or lower on occasion. Have also heard that as long as you have protection to say -25C it won't freeze if it gets colder. Doing a quick search online UFA (farm store) looks to have the lowest prices on antifreeze. They also have the lowest price for AW32 hydraulic oil. $20+ a pail cheaper.
Good to know, I always just used distilled water. Will look for de ionized water next time.…
Iirc there is an additive left out of the cheap hydraulic oil. OK for older lower pressure low tech systems. Not for modern equipment.
It's AW32 so it must meet some standards. I think it's priced lower because UFA has their own refinery and are slowly adding new products to their line of oil products. I think it might be priced to get customers to try it. It's a significant savings if you need 2 or 3 pails. Could get 4 pails for the price of 3 other brands. UFA isn't a bargain basement farm store. They sell name brand products and not cheap import stuff.
Napa has good prices on antifreeze. They have some HD extended life diesel premix on sale for older engines for $9.99. Seems like a good price that I don't have to fiddle around mixing it myself. I don't have wet sleeves to worry about.
Just be careful what anti freeze you are using and what you are putting it in. Used to always be green , then they added Dex Cool which was orange. Now the Motherships all have there brands and colors and of course they claim it will screw up a system, if you use anything else.
As far as the UFA AW32 that i use, its Shell branded. As far as antifreeze, i use 3 types— Dexcool for vehicles, ELC for newer diesels and green for the old cast iron engines
It wouldn't surprise me if the hyd. oil is made by Shell and someone at UFA didn't know so said they make it. It comes in a black pail and doesn't say much on it. I used it in the grader that has gear pumps. UFA sells a lot of oil to farmers and I have never heard of any problems with the oil they sell. I'm sure they'd stop selling it if it was causing problems. They usually have big spring and fall sales on oil. I'm going to try and get a spec. sheet on it. I can't see UFA selling a poor (hyd.) oil. As far as the antifreeze, it's always just been the green stuff in the tractor. I was a little shocked I could open the drain on the rad. easily with my fingers. I was expecting to need some pliers to loosen it. No crap blocking the drain either. It came out really clean and green colored.
Around here it gets red peak or red cat or both everything from my ktm bike to the road trucks all is one one is all
I've used Prestone all makes all models ** in the past. My equipment is all older with the basic green antifreeze. The dump truck and grader are the two I need to keep tabs on because they have Cummins engines with wet sleeves.
ELC red is all fleet, put it in everything now (after a flush of course)
The premix I got meets Cat EC-1. It's a 60 year old tractor so it doesn't need anything special.
And it's the same price as green, so I don't bother keeping green anymore, it will go in my wife's van as well
Where are you finding red ELC same price as green?
Local supply house has premix red for $10 a gallon
I use 100% anti freeze. And plain water. Out of a creek if thats all I can get. All that matters is that it has an additive to prevent static charges if you use it in an engine with liners. I mix all colors as well. Thats just dye basically. I put plain water and mixed colors in everything from old D330 Cats to 3406 Cats to C15 Cats to Deere 6414T to 6068 to Isuzu Diesels in excavators to my pickup trucks 6.7 cummins. Done this for 30 years and the only problems were way back about 20 some years ago when I learned about static the hard way in a 400 and a 350 Cummins, that both shot holes in the liners.
The antifreeze was red for $10/gallon Cad. which was a great price. Reg. $13.59 which is still a good price. Concentrated is $21.59 or something like that. Two gallons of premix is cheaper than buying a gallon of concentrated and a $6.00 jug of deionized water. It took just under 2 jugs. The valve for the heater was shut off but I opened it to make sure there were no air pockets after the tractor was running for a little while. The heater hoses got hot so it must be circulating. Ran it for awhile and it seems good. I put a 190 thermostat in it years ago and the temp gauge is in the green about 3/4 of the way up. I had to use the old fan belt because the dealer couldn't find the right one and ordered one that was 3" too long. Apparently Agco's computer system was hacked not too long ago. It's always been a pain finding the right parts for a UK built 135 though. It doesn't help that parts person doesn't know what they're talking about. The guy was looking at Tractor Data and said UK135's were built 1964-1975. I said the UK models were built till 1979. Then he says there was a standard and a deluxe and he's been doing this for 40 years. First of all the US models were sold 1964-1975. The UK models were introduced at a big fancy farm show in Dec. 1964 and sold as 1965 models. Whether there was a HP increase or other improvements over the years the UK models were still till 1979. It's kind of annoying when the parts people can't accept they don't know as much as they think. Relying on Tractor Data for your info is a bit of a red flag. Dealer having to look on the internet for parts is another one. I had a part number but he said it's no good because he couldn't find a superceded number. Then he tells me about the computer system being hacked. Duh, that might be why you can't an updated part number.
We are almost at that point, only us old guys will remember checking nitrate and nitrite levels with test strips, testing pH and managing cooling system chemistry. Now, it’s all about the colors. I prefer the Asian blue. Who’s with me on this?
Creek water is probably better than plain water. What is plain water anyway? Some places have very poor water to be using it in a rad. A lot of things have been learned about cooling systems and coolant over the years. On new equipment it's especially important to use the right coolant and the right water. Not all antifreeze is compatible with other antifreeze so it's best not to hope it is. Why not just use deionized water instead of having to buy an additive? Larger systems use filters that have the proper amount of additives and should be changed at recommended intervals. Edit, changed to say deionized water.
There's 8 or more different colors of antifreeze now. Too many choices. I think some of it is just so they can sell it for more if it's for a higher end vehicle.
Kohler makes a blue now they say to use it in everything. I carry 4 types in stock and on the truck I just use whatever was already in there most of the time. If it is green that means it is usually old and poorly maintained and not long for the world so put the cheap green back Some units have yellow, I use the yellow universal for them Red ELC in my case it is Final Charge, hard to buy the concentrate but I found the part number so now I know how to order it And finally Kohler blue Actually I lied I also carry Cummins blue and it has a slightly different additive pack than Kohler blue In a pinch I would not sweat it but I like to keep things as correct as possible Also distilled water is not $6 a gallon but I don't know what it is nowadays, I have somebody else go to get it at the grocery. Used to be $1 Funny story, once I had a load of distilled gallons in the truck bed one night and went to bring them into the shop in the morning. One brand was frozen solid and another brand had no ice whatsoever.
Distilled water is a lot cheaper than deionized water. I mixed the terms up. I'll edit the earlier posts.
I think most coolants have enough buffers that any city water, especially surface water, is good enough. Even so, distilled water is cheap insurance to know you are getting nothing else in there. If I have to do a total flush with a garden hose, so that the cooling system is nothing but clear water of unknown mineral content, I do not go to any great lengths. Just add enough straight coolant to make 50% with the water that is in there, and top the rest of the way off with 50%.
Been a lot of chat in the coolant community lately discussing the merits of distilled water vs deionized water. I haven’t realy paid much attention. The deionized crowd loves their H+ ions and the distilled guys love the paucity of dissolved solids. What’s a girl to do?
Working at a blender which mixes bulk engine coolant, we followed these guidelines for water.
One of my clients just mixed up a 75,000 gallon order of glycol engine coolant for an oil patch customer.
I think more so with newer engines the coolant is almost as important as the oil you put in the engine. There's some coolants that are quite a bit more expensive. I don't know if there's any benefit to using a more expensive antifreeze in older engines with parent block or dry liners.
Today, you really have to pay attention to what the OEM’s are doing. For example:Ford discontinuing HOAT coolant and switching to Phosphate OAT coolant in an attempt to prevent heater core corrosion in their product line. Something to do with the new way their supplier solders the cores together. You can’t even go by what the original owners manual says. Have to follow the latest TSB’s.
All nonsense near as I can tell. Distilled water is made by evaporating and recondensing water and putting it into a jug so there is nothing in it but H2O. Deionized is an attempt to make the same thing by running it through a filtration system. Both are just a way to get the lime and other chemicals that are something other than water out of it.
Yeah. We sent water samples out on a regular basis and the majors were happy with the results. Fresh out of the tap. But, it is Alaska grown, organic glacier water straight out of Eklutna Lake. That probably makes all the difference. lol
Hopefully not that light blue gray glacier water I have seen that looks like it contains more rock than water
A local entrepreneur started bottling it. He will ship you 8 little bottles for $24 bucks. Our Community | Clear Alaskan Glacial www.alaskaglacier.com
What are the pros and cons of water that is filtered by using reverse-osmosis ?
I think the Cat gear is the only thing around the shop that gets it own coolant. Everything else is a premix, just to eliminate the stupidity. When I worked around the shop with my dad in my youth, It was a gallon of green, and a gallon of water from the hose. Run it till the thermostat opened, check it with the meter, and top it up with water or green. I do remember cummins having a filter with an additive in it, not sure if they still do that or not. I made the mistake once on my own Ford Taurus, topping it up with Dexcool, only to create shaving cream
I have a pool so I know a lot about water testing and quality. Most testing is inaccurate, well pretty much all of it except titration methods. Even fancy expensive machines are inaccurate. Ro water irc is very low pH and alkalinity, like 6, it's bad for you to drink, just like bottled water is bad for you to drink. I thought there was a couple colors that didn't play that well together. Deionized water sounds like snake oil. I wonder if my super pH (7.8) and super high alkalinity (220 ppm) house water is great for cooling systems as it should prevent and acid type of corrosion.
I have 2 wells so my water is pretty plain. I did some research a while back on anti freeze and they all do mix and they all are pretty much the same. The additives in certain kinds are what can cause you a problem. But they are usually the ones for a specific vehicle or machine. I was needing to add some coolant to a system with regular old green stuff and all I had was dex cool and that's what led me down that rabbit hole. Also here where I live there is a massive Tyson Chicken Processing plant and my uncle just retired as head over refrigeration. He has told me all of the coolants they have there in bulk, and it's every kind under the sun. He said they will all mix no problem but some are not food grade is all they have to watch for there.
Wow is right. The new Willow Project pipeline is going to use glycol to hydrotest with. As I understand, #1 or Jet A is normally used. I’m curious what they will do with all of it after testing is done? I suppose it will be trucked back to Anchorage for recycling and turned into de-icing fluid for the Airport.
What about the stop leak? Bars Leak or Aluma Seal or just some oatmeal.
The gluten free , non GMO option, of course. Bob’s Red Mill 100% organic rolled oats. All the time, everytime.
I knew you were a greenie.
lol. I did become a foodie in my old age. Eating clean, growing what I eat, wild game, gardening, subsistence fishing, backyard rabbits, chickens, trading and bartering. Eating local. Big change from my Caterpillar field mechanic days of living on peanut butter Wonderbread & brown liquor for days on end.
It's the Wonderbread that did it.
How do you manage to have time for any of that with all the work? One of the great things about being more mature than I used to, always trying to lose weight so I no longer have to worry if I miss a meal or 2
There is a neighbor kid that helps with the livestock chores when I’m out of town. This region gets enough rain during the growing season that irrigation isn’t an issue. Next month will be hectic when everything is ready for processing, canning, fermenting and freezing.