cooling system flush

[houndog10]

do you think that useing strong chemicals to flush ones cooling system is likely to do more harm than good? what is your openion?

[SuperRA]

I think it depends on the situation. If the built up crud is bad, then a non-chemical flush will be ineffective. If you flush (non-chemically) often enough then you probably won't need to use chemicals. If you just bought the car and don't know any history, I'd chemical flush it once then run water through it twice. And from then on flush it non-chemically regularly. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to use chemicals every 5yrs or so. I don't think it'd do much harm especially if you run water in it twice to get as much of it out once it's done.

[SCT]

I don't think chemical flushing would do harm either if it was meant for that purpose. What chemicals are you referring to?

[SuperRA]

I was assuming he was talking about the store bought "flush" like for example prestone.

[Ghostyman]

I've used CLR remover (Calcium, Lime, Rust) in the cooling system while flushing. It got a lot of gunk out and the heater was noticeably warmer afterwards (implying that the core was cleared out somewhat).

I wrote up a small thing on how to flush the coolant on AE92s, I think it's still linked from one of the DIY/Project stickys.