On Sep 4, 2004, at 21:22, steve preston wrote:
> I`m wondering what`s causing these heater core
> failures. Check this out. Pretty interesting:
>
> www.performanceradiator.com/Publications/Information/POSTECHTIPLR.PDF
Boy, he gets off to a good start:
> Deionized water does not contain oxygen.
so then it's just the hydrogen? Or do you mean *dissolved* free O2, in
which case he's still wrong since as soon as it's exposed to atmosphere
some O2, N and trace gasses will start dissolving.
This idiot has 0 credibility off the bat.
The point he was trying to make is that tapwater will damage your
cooling system. He then (in the same paragraph) defeats his own point
by mentioning (correctly) that commercial coolants contain corrosion
inhibitors that nearly completely negate the extra corrosive properties
of tap water versus distilled water:
> “Experiment” - Aluminum heater/radiator (new) tubes placed into a
> container of untreated “tap water” will begin to corrode in a matter
> of days without the inhibitor protection found in automotive coolants.
> 3.) High mileage can increase the potential for repeat failures. Most
> failures of this type occur out of warranty on vehicles four to five
> years old with mileage in excess of 70,000 miles.
so cores will fail when they get old/ have lots of use. milage/age =
wear. I'll give you a gold star next time I see you. congrats. Now
how does this increase the potential for *repeat* failures? All right,
I'll grant that once it's failed once, you can have a repeat, and if it
has yet to fail, you can't get a repeat failure yet.... So I guess
he's right.
What he's going on to talk about is successive repeat failures: the
replacement cores not lasting as long as the OE core. Well I've got
one real quick explanation for that if the coolant is properlu flushed:
the replacement core was a piece of unreliable poo!
Well that's the first paragraph.
The only interesting topic discussed is electrolysis in the cooling
system eroding soft metals (usually the Al in the rad/ heater core) but
the only examples cited are GMs, so they're probably where the problem
is most common. Skip the scheist on the first page, and read the tech
stuff. it sucks less and is mildly interesting, but not something I'd
ever really expect to have to deal with.
-- Mike Maskalans <http://mike.tepidcola.com/dodge/> '84 RamCharger Daily Driver '98 Dakota under the knife mobile.612.618.4652 home.585.935.7129
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