Diesel engines with wet sleeves (liners) are notorious for electrolysis damage. Back in 1980 I had to rebuild a couple John Deere engines that had leaking liners, so now that I have this JD 450E I want to do whatever I can to prevent electrolysis. I intend to flush the cooling system and fill it with green antifreeze at a strength richer than 50/50. The operators manual says to use a half pint of John Deere Coolant Conditioner RE 12842. The Deere dealer didn't have any. What corrosion inhibitor do you guys use?
I use the CAT red premix after flushing, set and forget. By the way, electrolysis is not caused by corrosion, it's caused by tiny bubbles in the coolant (formed by the shock wave of the combustion explosion emanating from the liner surface) imploding, or collapsing. The implosion actually etches the metal out of the liner surface. Common practice when reusing liners was to turn them a quarter turn so the areas most likely to see electrolysis got clean metal. I'm sure we'll get a discussion going on this, much like which brand and weight of oil is best coolant and additives seems to be a matter of personal choice to a point.
Thanks for the info. Some liners I've removed had electrolysis along the front and rear, others had electrolysis down one common side, like all the left or all the right. Does the CAT red premix help against electrolysis at all or just ordinary corrosion?
Cavitation protection is what we're talking about. Electrolysis is cause by stray electrical current, dissimilar metals, or hair removal. I'm not aware electrolysis is a problem with any coolant that is reasonably maintained? There are basically three coolant types for diesels, Organic acid like CAT ELC, conventional nitrite SCA, and Cummins' DCA 4(nitrite borate?). SCA and DCA 4 are tested annually and adjusted. ELC has a longer life. edit: DCA 4 is molybdate. Nige and Lantraxco will say ELC is the best, not sure why to use anything else? Don't use more than 50% coolant unless you need it, colder than -40.
Are those coolants glycol based?
Delmer is correct about cavitation damage, I have often heard it called electrolysis I suppose because the effect looks about the same. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but I believe they're all glycol based, just different additive packages. I'm not yellow blooded like most current or former CAT people, but the ELC premix coolant is just a great solution to me. Premixed so there's no guessing, good down to minus 30 as it comes in the bucket (You can buy and add concentrate should you be foolish enough to want to live and work in colder temps) and with no testing or mucking about it's good for 6,000 hours. Then you dump in a bottle of extender and go another 6,000. I doubt I'll live that long.
Any place that carries Wix filters can get "Wix cool." coolant conditioner. Pint #24056 1/2 gallon #24058.