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What coolant to use?

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:15 am
by mark.hingston
I see on here we are obsessed with coolant issues and have never really worried about it before. But now after luckily noticing coolant dripping from the rad and detecting that the rad had indeed gone, I am now having a new one fitted today.
My garage has said not to worry he will put in standard anti freeze mixed with water as usual. But I seem to remember that a while back I read that it has to be special coolant... Am I being thick or is this the case????

Must get one of those coolant loss indicators I was lucky this time, The heater gague really does not tell you until it is too late. Whats that all about then?

Re: What coolant to use?

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 11:58 am
by bigdaddycain
Many on here have incorporated a "mason alarm" to re-calibrate the temp gauge to indicate a more accurate temperature reading. It also has the added benefit of an audible alarm if the pre-set temp parameter is exceeded.

Pop "Mason and alarm" into the search facility, (but without the speech marks :P ).

The main issue of adding coolant is ensuring that ALL (possibly Japanese in origin) the old coolant is well and truly flushed out, give the old stuff a good kicking for good measure too,and call it a few nasty names.

I used a good quality red coolant for my bongo, though pretty much any decent brand coolant can be used really. It needs to be dropped out every two years anyway, in keeping with the service interval.

It's advisable to have the radiator flushed, then "back flushed" too whilst fettling, and don't forget the good old important bleeding of the system afterwards.

Re: What coolant to use?

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 12:59 pm
by missfixit70
Make sure your garage are conversant with the bleeding procedure for the bongo, if they're not using a vacuum fill system, print out the bleed instructions from the factsheet & make sure they do it properly or you will have much worse problems.

Re: What coolant to use?

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:49 pm
by mark.hingston
Thanks for the advice. Er...... where are the fact sheets located???

Re: What coolant to use?

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 4:01 pm
by francophile1947
In the Member's Area :D