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Old 02-24-2023, 10:35 AM
indybenz indybenz is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Indianapolis
Posts: 447
Quote:
Originally Posted by vwnate1 View Post
I have far more experience here than I wish .

I bought a 1979 300CD that was allowed to sit for well over a year with only tap water in the cooling system plus my 240D had 'solder bloom' .

Anyways : IMO the best way to clean the cooling system is buy driving the car with the citric acid cleaner in it, this may take a while like several days of driving to work and back before all the crud comes loose .

The heater matrix (core) is designed to retain coolant even with the hoses removed .

I disconnected the three heater hoses and used a garden hose to make the initial flush, I discovered that each time I reversed the flow more and different crud came out .

After it stopped spewing reddish water I closed the system
When you say 'closed the system' that means hooking up all the hoses and running 'normally'?



Quote:
Originally Posted by vwnate1 View Post
and made a mix of citric acid powder and distilled water and ran that,


'Ran that' mix, as in drove the car around for a while with the citric acid powder and distilled water mix instead of coolant?


Quote:
Originally Posted by vwnate1 View Post
it took some time but eventually the mix turned black and the inside of the radiator turned copper color again .

Then I flushed the system with baking soda and distilled water to neutralize the acid before filling the system with a 50/50 mix .

And the flush you did was in-situ, with a garden hose?



Thanks a million! This is great information!!!!
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