Flushing bars leak out of rad
#1
Flushing bars leak out of rad
Hey guys, I took over someone elses project 87 coupe with a aluminum rad. The guy before me used bars leak to stop a leak somewhere, where I don't know yet. Drove it all summer no leak. I drained my antifreeze to replace my hot water shut off valve and my antifreeze was brown. Removing the rad cap revealed a brown stringy substance.....bars leak.
How can I get that out of my rad? My car is sleeping up here in Canada so I took the rad out. No one can tell me how to flush that crap out. I realize I need a total system flush but the rad is out so any little bit helps. I have to wait for spring before the car can wake up. Can anyone tell me what to use....and how to do it out of the car.....I thought of waiting until my wife goes to work then use the shower nozzle....hope she doesn't find out..lol
Thx...ol vette
How can I get that out of my rad? My car is sleeping up here in Canada so I took the rad out. No one can tell me how to flush that crap out. I realize I need a total system flush but the rad is out so any little bit helps. I have to wait for spring before the car can wake up. Can anyone tell me what to use....and how to do it out of the car.....I thought of waiting until my wife goes to work then use the shower nozzle....hope she doesn't find out..lol
Thx...ol vette
#2
Team Owner
Pro Mechanic
I think that your only effective options are to pull a tank and forcefully flush each tube, then re-install the tank.
#3
Le Mans Master
I had that stuff in a car a while back. I couldn't get it out.
On mine it plugged the radiator to the point the car was overheating. I had to replace the radiator.
Hopefully you can find a way.
Good luck.
On mine it plugged the radiator to the point the car was overheating. I had to replace the radiator.
Hopefully you can find a way.
Good luck.
#4
Vinegar flush pull the knock and what ever you have on the other side then baking soda to neutralize.
#5
What brand is the radiator? A "premium" aluminum product or just the "economy" branding that's available? Do you know? Might the PO know? I'd think branding might influence a decision.
#6
Team Owner
Unfortunately, that stuff will be all thru the engine and the heater core. I don't think the plastic end tanks can be removed from the radiator core and then replaced.
I would suggest getting a new radiator, a new thermostat, new radiator hoses, (all hoses if possible) and pull the knock sensor so that all of the old coolant and junk can drain out of the block. Does the car have the KC4 oil cooler? You may want to pull those hosed, tubes and the cooler unit above the oil filter and clean everything.
I would suggest getting a new radiator, a new thermostat, new radiator hoses, (all hoses if possible) and pull the knock sensor so that all of the old coolant and junk can drain out of the block. Does the car have the KC4 oil cooler? You may want to pull those hosed, tubes and the cooler unit above the oil filter and clean everything.
#7
Team Owner
Pro Mechanic
#8
Hi OlVette. I am in Calgary where are you?
I had an 85 with the same issue.
The reason you have the bars leak is probably a head gasket in #7.
I have found that the bars leak or the 'irontite' as was in mine usually works fairly well and dealing with a small to medium sized leak. But, for the big ones it usually won't be allowed to sludge up at the leak site enough to bandaid the problem.
Anyway, my car ran hot as well, and was poo brown as well. Here is what I did:
built a knock sensor drain, into a hose, which ran out into a pail for the first cycle to catch the coolant. after the initial drain, i just drained to my grass as it was only rusty water or vinegar with no coolant.
I did about 5 douche cycles.
remove the tstat. no biggie.
then you can fill and drain the system as many times as you could like.
buy vinegar and run the car so that vinegar gets run throughout the system, then shut it down for about an hour or so. then drain it. do this as many times as it takes to get the rusty color out. i did a 1:1 vinegar to water mix. I used tap water for this process.
Then as a final cleanse, I bought some prestone flush, and used $1/gallon distilled water and ran the car for a week. (in the summer this was OK, don't do it when its going to freeze!). Then I drained this out one last time and refilled with the 50/50 mix.
It absolutely worked.
However, it also exposed the head gasket leak. :-)
Which I then fixed and the car has never been better. I sold the car looking like it came out of the showroom and the buyer was very happy.
A trick for cleaning your overflow reservoir to make it look new again after the rusty water:
grab about 2 cups of "playground sized gravel" and filter this gravel in your pasta collander to get the leaves and organic matter out.
remove the plastic reservoir from the car, pour the gravel into the container.
put in the purple cleaner from autovalue or some cleaner, any cleaner, and then shake shake shake until the gravel scrapes it all off.
It will look as new when you re-install.
you can buy a new overflow hose from autovalue just using the bulk rubber hose supply. take your old one with you if it is cracked or leaking pressure.
and don't get scared by the head gasket comment. it could be as simple as a leaking rad cap, or a leaking heater core, or a leak at the oil cooler. some guys are just too lazy to figure out what the leak is and they dump this stuff in.
fyi, when i later pulled the heads to do the head gasket repair, i found layers of precipitated bars leak/irontite fully occluding two of the coolant ports in the head right at cyl 7. that is how the stuff works. wherever it depressurizes, it precipitates out and clogs the pressure leak. in my case it was so bad that so much of it was precipitating out it occluded the coolant jacket ports around 7.
it was a previous owners solution, not mine!
I had an 85 with the same issue.
The reason you have the bars leak is probably a head gasket in #7.
I have found that the bars leak or the 'irontite' as was in mine usually works fairly well and dealing with a small to medium sized leak. But, for the big ones it usually won't be allowed to sludge up at the leak site enough to bandaid the problem.
Anyway, my car ran hot as well, and was poo brown as well. Here is what I did:
built a knock sensor drain, into a hose, which ran out into a pail for the first cycle to catch the coolant. after the initial drain, i just drained to my grass as it was only rusty water or vinegar with no coolant.
I did about 5 douche cycles.
remove the tstat. no biggie.
then you can fill and drain the system as many times as you could like.
buy vinegar and run the car so that vinegar gets run throughout the system, then shut it down for about an hour or so. then drain it. do this as many times as it takes to get the rusty color out. i did a 1:1 vinegar to water mix. I used tap water for this process.
Then as a final cleanse, I bought some prestone flush, and used $1/gallon distilled water and ran the car for a week. (in the summer this was OK, don't do it when its going to freeze!). Then I drained this out one last time and refilled with the 50/50 mix.
It absolutely worked.
However, it also exposed the head gasket leak. :-)
Which I then fixed and the car has never been better. I sold the car looking like it came out of the showroom and the buyer was very happy.
A trick for cleaning your overflow reservoir to make it look new again after the rusty water:
grab about 2 cups of "playground sized gravel" and filter this gravel in your pasta collander to get the leaves and organic matter out.
remove the plastic reservoir from the car, pour the gravel into the container.
put in the purple cleaner from autovalue or some cleaner, any cleaner, and then shake shake shake until the gravel scrapes it all off.
It will look as new when you re-install.
you can buy a new overflow hose from autovalue just using the bulk rubber hose supply. take your old one with you if it is cracked or leaking pressure.
and don't get scared by the head gasket comment. it could be as simple as a leaking rad cap, or a leaking heater core, or a leak at the oil cooler. some guys are just too lazy to figure out what the leak is and they dump this stuff in.
fyi, when i later pulled the heads to do the head gasket repair, i found layers of precipitated bars leak/irontite fully occluding two of the coolant ports in the head right at cyl 7. that is how the stuff works. wherever it depressurizes, it precipitates out and clogs the pressure leak. in my case it was so bad that so much of it was precipitating out it occluded the coolant jacket ports around 7.
it was a previous owners solution, not mine!
#9
Thx. VikingTrad3r........I live in Saskatoon......Thx for all the info, I relocated the knock sensor it was clean, the aluminum rad has aluminum top and bottom tanks...not plastic. I have the oil cooler it was not full of bars leak. The guy before me had a rad leak I am assuming he used bars leak and then replaced the rad with a good quality aluminum one. It could still be the bars leak from before I don't know. The top and bottom rad hose looked good, heater hose looked good, the water passages in the intake looked good as well. I will try the flush you mentioned can't hurt right....By the way Viking.............GO FLAMES.....lol
#10
Thx. VikingTrad3r........I live in Saskatoon......Thx for all the info, I relocated the knock sensor it was clean, the aluminum rad has aluminum top and bottom tanks...not plastic. I have the oil cooler it was not full of bars leak. The guy before me had a rad leak I am assuming he used bars leak and then replaced the rad with a good quality aluminum one. It could still be the bars leak from before I don't know. The top and bottom rad hose looked good, heater hose looked good, the water passages in the intake looked good as well. I will try the flush you mentioned can't hurt right....By the way Viking.............GO FLAMES.....lol
i was at the game 2 nights ago it was a great 3 zip win over TO!!