Doesn't look like oil to me. Is there a 'slick' on top? Try to pinch some of the crud between your fingers and see if it stains/streaks.
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Doesn't look like oil to me. Is there a 'slick' on top? Try to pinch some of the crud between your fingers and see if it stains/streaks.
nope no slick, just crud...I was lookign for one. I thoroughly inspected it with a flashlight before putting the cap on. But the water was really damn hot, didn't bother to stick my finger in it. Didn't think about checking it for slippery-ness or streaking anyway, was a good idea, but too late now.
It could have also have been some dust blowing in the wind, but it wasn't very windy so I dunno...
You sure are the radiator is half empty type aren't cha! ;)
Not really, just trying to catch the expensive stuff while im not broke and while the weather is under triple digits.
Sounds like you found your problem, and the antifreeze looks fine, you will always see some gunk. Make sure you use distilled water though, to minimize the buildup of gunk and rust within the system.
Also, if you have a stock type t-stat, you don't get that super sucking rush that drains the radiator once the t-stat opens, as the stock type has a bleader hole that allows the air to pass before the t-stat ever opens, thus it is less dramatic when the t-stat does finally open.
Oh good deal. That would explain all the bubbles.
Yea, I made sure to use distilled water. That's why I was flushing the system, since after it burped a bunch of water out I had to top it off with nasty Euless water a few weeks ago.
The drive in seems to confirm something's going right so i'll call it case closed for now, but keep an eye on it for a few weeks.
It burped a little water out this morning, but that's normal with WOT highway driving after a completely full radiator/overflow reservior, right? Temps were normal afterwards so I assume it was just burping out the overflow.
Thermostat check:
Start the car and put your hand on the upper hose. The temperature of the hose will be Pretty cool at first. When (if) the T-stat opens, there will be a sudden and drastic increase in temperature in the top hose. By grabbing both the upper and the lower hoses just after the car warms up (before it is too hot to touch the upper hose), you can get an idea of your radiator's performance. There should be a noticeable difference in temperature between the two.
Fan Parallel Mod:
There is a tip in the tech section of the pointy board where you bridge the signal wire from the ECU to the two fans. When the car reaches the threshold temperature for the cooling fan to come on, both fans will come on. This is the best way to run fans in parallel, because the second fan will not draw electricity from a circuit designed to power only one fan.
^Good info. I plan to run them in parallel, but I want to make sure I root out and fix the problem first and make sure I can keep decent temps with stock setup before modifying anything. I don't want a major failure this summer.