radiator and vinegar

[falcoron]

Hi,
Just back from my mates place ( radiator services) and he tell s me every bongo he has seen or worked on has had problems with the radiator being half full of hard sludge that is vertually impossible to shift and most if not all trouble with overheating is because of the rad not working to its full potential (not rocket sience)
I am going to get a new one for mine very soon.
Anyway just as an experiment and before i fit the new rad i have been told that white vinegar is superb at cleaning out the entire system from sludge, lime scale and other crud that is in there. I looked it up on google and lo and behold it is very widely used and the results are there for all to see. Apparently it is less harsh than the chemical flushes on the market but more effective?
On one of the links in google one guy shows the crud that is in a brand new rad and flushes it with a vinegar solution 3 times until it clears. apparently there is loads of flux and grease in a new rad?
I am thinking if trying this, does anyone have any thoughts or concerns?
PS
my system is still playing up one day its ok next its up to nearly max temp, no loss of water and the new antifreeze still a good clean colour, one day the heaters are nice and warm another they are only just slightly warm even with the temp gauge up near max.
cant wait till the weekend and get the new stat in and try this flush if safe to do so, and get her back to normal again

[francophile1947]

I tried it to descale a kettle once, but it wasn't very effective as it took ages - citric acid was far better.
I personally wouldn't want to leave an acid solution in my cooling system for as long as it would take to shift limescale

[falcoron]

Fair point John. Just wondered had anyone tried it. Loads of stuff on google about how good it is and supposidly less harmful to waterpump seals etc in the system than the flushers available in the car shops. I know nothing of this but has me curious to say the least. Thanks for the reply.
Ron

[wishmaster]

To be honest i dont think i'd try this in my cooling system, we recently had the cooling system flushed with plain water and a 50/50 mix refill with a 2 year antifreeze , our heaters run lovely and hot back and front and the coolant is still a lovely colour . Thats good enough for me

Izzy

[vanvliet]

Where are you sourcing the new rad?

[falcoron]

Where are you sourcing the new rad?

My mate has them at £135 but i can get them on ebay from £99 up
Ballyclare radiator services in Northern Ireland.

[dobby]

Our head went last year due to a split hose. Prior to that it had always run a bit hot - it had overheated badly about a year after we got it but the head was ok. When I had the head done we also had all new hoses and a new radiator fitted. It runs a lot cooler now. Well worth changing the Rad.