Antifreeze change

[Ed Miles]

I had my cooling system flushed by a retired mechanic who is a friend of mine. When I pick up the trac he told me he added 2 gal of pure antifreeze. I questioned this and he assured me this was fine. Now I want to remove a gallon and add water until I have a 50/50 mix (I live in Massachusetts). My question is does the radiator on the 04 trac have a pet cock or do I have to detach the lower radiator hose? Thanks for any advice.

 

[EddieS'04]

Our tracs have a 14qt cooling system. He only added 1qt to much. You could drain a bit more than 1qt and add distilled water. Should be ok.

 

[TRACket Paul]

The drain valve is located on the passenger side of the radiator, towards the engine. A crescent wrench, vise grip or regular pliers might make it easier. Also, some plastic or rubber tube can make it less messy.

 

[Robert Caffyn]

Don't forget to recycle!!

 

[Kevin Palmer]

One reason that the 50/50 ratio is important is, by increasing or decreasing the 50/50 number you actually change the temperature that the coolant WANTS to be at. I say WANT as both the radiator and T-Stat will help to get it back to the 180 or 190 or whatever the Trac is designed to run at.



The reason you want to maintain the designed temperature (besides the obvious reason) is for the air conditioning. By changing the temperature of the coolant you do affect the temperature of the A/C core that sits in front of the radiator. When the A/C runs at a different temperature (meaning the freon), it changes the physical location that the gas turns into a liquid. If the location is changed enough, you will get liquid freon to reach the compressor which will destroy the compressor as it is designed to compress gas, not a liquid (which is a solid). As it cannot compress the solid, the compressor breaks as something has to give...

 

[Bill Koonce]

The 50/50 ratio between antifreeze and distilled water (always use distilled water) makes for the lowest freezing temperature for the solution. If you live in an area where the temperatures can reach -40 or below, you want the best mix.



Your engine coolant shouldn't have any effect on your air conditioning. A/C no longer uses Freon; Freon has been banned. While it's true that the cooling effect of A/C is caused by the endothermic effects of coolant phase change from liquid to gas, liquids are NOT solids. No properly functioning A/C system should have solids in it, even though solids do compress.

 

[Kevin Palmer]

MG.



Liquids, when in a compressed system are termed "solid" as they act as a solid. True, the new stuff is not a freon, but the gas acts the same as the older traditional freon of the past. Most still call it freon for the simple fact that it has always been called that.



And the location where the A/C gas converts back to a liquid is moved within the system based on the temperature of the condenser. Which by "radiation" is affected by the radiator. The orifice within the system cab be changed to change the internal pressure which can help to move the gas to liquid location, but only to a certain degree as certain pressures must exist for the system to work.



As far as solids compressing goes, officially you are correct, they do. But in reality, when a liquid is compressed within a compressor that is designed to compress gasses, it either locks up or breaks as it can only be compressed by the amount of how much gas (air) is within the liquid. On the same token, pumps can pump liquids all day long as they as simply designed to take in and push it back out, they are not compressing the liquid they are moving the liquid. A pump works by creating a low pressure area, compressors do the same thing but actually compress the item before the push it back out. A pump will have the same volume of space for the intake as the output, compressors take in more volume, compress it and then send it out.

 

[Ed Miles]

Thanks for all the feedback, it was helpful. I'll pick up an anti-freeze tester and see what I have now and mix accordingly.

 

[Rick Ruff]

Just so you know, straight anti-freeze WILL make your engine overheat/boil. It does a bad job of absorbing heat and transporting that heat to the radiator to get cooled. I have witnessed an engine boil over at idle with straight anti-freeze in it.