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Mon Jul 05, 2004 5:18 pm

I recently bought a watercooled syncro. I am new to this water cooled stuff but I do know It is supposed to be filled with Phospate free antifreeze. I see green in the resevoir and a half full jug of prestone under the seat. Am I to assume it is full of the wrong flavor? If so how much sleep should I be loosing worrying about this, and how soon should this problem be fixed?

Mon Jul 05, 2004 5:25 pm

depends..... :wink:

If you are a purest, use the blue stuff from VW. VW has an issue of eating nice little ruts, pits and valleys in the heads from nasty cheap anti freeze.

Use the wrong stuff, or at least weak stuff, ignore the cooling system for a year or so, guess what, leaking head gaskets.

IF, the heads have been redone, and are not leaking, chances are Prestone is fine, as long as its not weak or well used.

Use a good brand, keep it changed and fresh, the water boxer engine will serve you.

Thu Jul 08, 2004 12:22 pm

Hey, Space...

Get rid of the green stuff! I blew two engines using it before I learned.

dieselvwvan is right, so far as using the VW blue stuff, but I found that Prestone's orange long life coolant is also a good way to go - plus it's a lot easier to find when you need it!

I sure would take the time and mess to flush out the system with water first. When the system's cleaned out, use some gentle compressed air to blow out the remaining water (don't forget to remove the bleed plugs under the cylinder water jackets!) and fill with the orange stuff and bleed the system.

Boston Bob has some good info on Waterbower head replacement (you really might want to read this) and a good procedure for bleeding the cooling system. It's under "Bleeding The Cooling System" (what else?) on this page:

http://www.bostonengine.com/articles/waterboxes.html

About the orange stuff - use a coolant tester to make sure you've got a 50/50 mix. I find I have to add less volume of water in relation to the straight coolant to get it right - the "half water, half coolant" rule-of-thumb comes out WAY too light!

Thu Jul 08, 2004 5:12 pm

Amen..... :D
Ditto....... :P

Amen and Ditto..... :shock:

And, there is much to be said to be ornage not greennnnn :-&