Waterless Coolant?

[CaNsA]

Spotted this on Wheeler Dealers tonight.

What is it & can i use it on my zxr?

Cheers

[weasley]

www.evanscoolants.co.uk
____________________
Yamaha XJ600 | Yamaha YZF600R Thundercat | KTM 990 SMT | BMW F900XR TE

[tahrey]

I would guess it's pure ethylene glycol, without going so far as to read all the bumpf...

Might be suitable but I'd double check with the dealer or someone first. It's basically a super strong version of what you'd normally mix in with the deionised water when filling up normally.

Whether the higher strength would have any ill effects I wouldn't want to say. It probably freezes at a much lower temperature, but might not have as good a heat capacity?

[Irn-Bru]

On WD big Edd says 180c, he even took the rad cap off after the car was up to temperature to prove the lack of pressure.
____________________
KTM 990 SMT & Suzuki DR-Z 400 SM

[BigGeeking]

I was thinking about changing but fuck that have you seen the cost of the prep and the coolant over £100

will there be much corrosion if you do a coolant change every 2 years with 50/50 mix?
____________________
Bendy "Flip front. I can filter down the M4 while shoving a Twix in my face."
honda CG 125 2001 SOLD-- current Bandit 400--SOLD. current SV650s 2000
MOD 1 ON 20/7/2011**passed** MOD 2 ON 17/10/2011***passed***,,

[Robby]

Your bike has a pressurised water cooling system. It is designed for water, with a boiling point of 100 celcius. It regulates the temperature to keep it below the boiling point of water, but relies on the thermal expansion of water at higher temperatures for a key things, the main one being bleeding any air out of the system.

Stick to either pre-mixed coolant, or a 50/50 mix of coolant and water.

[stonesie]

I thought the main one was to prevent the coolant boiling at temperatures just over 100°C, Increasing the pressure increases the boiling point.
The pressure cap on mine is rated at 1.1bar and it sees 105°C quite often in slow traffic with no boiling.

I use pre mixed FUCHS coolant for alloy engines.

[The Artist]

The cons of this outweigh the pros.

Just use water mix like it was designed for. Water is damn good at heat absorption and the radiators are designed specifically to remove heat from a water/glycol mix. Corrosion is minimal if you flush it out every year or 2.

[CaNsA]

Ta.

[Walloper]

[Irn-Bru]

[tahrey]

Is that the harrowing new movie and/or book that mashes up 50 Shades of Grey with The Human Centipede 2 ?

[tahrey]

Tried to have a read of the site to figure out what it actually was ... all I could get is that it really doesn't like being mixed with water (??) so you have to put the water-absorbing engine flush in. So it's maybe something analogous to brake fluid, but less destructive of cooling system parts?

Other than that it's got yer typical snake-oil promotion characteristics of hugely bigging up the supposed benefits without actually making a convincing case for why they are a benefit, or telling you what's in the stuff in the first place.

I mean, for example, it's rated to 180 celcius ... but prevents overheating. When I would consider coolant clocking in at 120 celcius as "seriously overheated, pull over and have a picnic whilst the engine cools", why is there a need for a further 60 celcius of overhead? Maybe if I'm running a race engine where extreme temperatures may be experienced and there's no opportunity to pull over and let things cool, that might be useful. On the road? I don't think so. I've rarely ever nudged past 100'C even when really thrashing... by which point the engine fan has already kicked into high gear.

And apparently the lack of pressure means that there's "less strain" on the "engine parts" meaning they have a longer life. Really? I can't think of a single instance where I've seen any part of the engine or cooling system fail from overpressure let alone normal pressure (amazingly, it's possible to design metal and rubber parts to deal with a few PSI of positive internal pressure over long periods, otherwise engines and tyres wouldn't work).

However, removing the water could be a good thing if you want your water pump, thermostat and radiator to last a super-long time ... given that after 10-15 years using cheap-shit poorly corrosion-protective coolant and tap water instead of deionised stuff, and only changing it when it's necessary to drain the system to do other work, those parts tend to get a bit rusty and start jamming up or leaking.

It's worth noting, though, in that case, that the cost of replacing all three things only typically comes to the equivalent of 2 to 3 fills of this stuff...

Similarly it might be useful if you live somewhere that regularly sees temperatures nudging -40 celcius. But in that case you've likely already made special provision to stop your engines from seizing up, such as running on pure ethylene glycol (and single grade zero-weight oil), adding insulation and block heaters (and fuel tank/line heaters), blocking off the radiator, etc. Or even, if one drunken-business-trip story my dad sometimes tells is to be believed, running without any coolant at all and the system open to the air (with no baffles, insulation, etc), because that is itself sufficient, along with the circulation of the oil and a belt-driven fan, to keep a lightly loaded (driving on ice, remember) engine, even a supposedly water-cooled one, from melting itself in those atmospheric conditions.

[jjdugen]

In the states its called Water Wetter (!). Most track bikes use it so there you go..... BTW, some Brit tracks wont allow it. Seems its super slippery if it leaks onto the track. (Which would suggest an oil based mix?)
____________________
The CBR900RR has been sold. Aprilia Falco worms its way into my heart.
Try Soi 23 on Amazon for a good read.... Self promotion? Moi?

[Walloper]

[Polarbear]

I pay through the nose and buy pre mixed bike coolant. Why? cause in the overall price of things its pennies.
____________________
Triumph Trophy Launch Edition

[Walloper]

[Polarbear]

[tahrey]

[Walloper]

[tahrey]

Woooooooooooo ok then.
Let's try and calm this one and work through it, eh?

In my mind there is a difference between "wear" and "corrosion", if that makes any odds?

One is down to chemical action, of the metal reacting with the fluid it's bathed in, oxidising or otherwise altering the material the component's made out of. It still causes physical effects, by deforming and weakening it to the point where bits start to flake off and eventually components end up perforating, seizing, or become blocked.

The other is down to direct mechanical friction of one solid object on another. Whereas this can still occur with fluid on solid, e.g. in the case of water rushing over rock and causing erosion, it typically happens on a very long-term timescale (decades or centuries, unless it's pretty soft and soluble rock) and still requires either an element of chemical action (any case where rock is dissolving into the water) or of some kind of physical action (small rock particles suspended in the flow causing impacts and friction), except in the less common / less applicable case of cavitation. Or freeze-thaw.

(The chemical, corrosive action can also cause, where components with moving parts are concerned, increased mechanical wear, but it isn't a direct cause of the wear itself, and doesn't do so in static components...)

Water pipes in your house may suffer corrosion but they don't "wear", and they're an open system where god only knows what is coming in. But they can last decades.

8 years isn't some magic figure, I'm just picking out a typical rough timescale where parts of the cooling system tend to start breaking down. It can be a bit less, it can be a whole lot more. Regardless, it's still a long enough period that in all but truly exceptional cases, the extra cost of using this stuff (which isn't 100% guaranteed to prevent radiator/water pump/etc failure anyway) ends up far exceeding that of replacing some known-perishable parts once a decade or so.

And I'll admit I do seem to have mentally bleeped the "insufficient protection" bit, for which I apologise - but it was still only a "possibility" rather than a known quantity.

Plus I still hold that it's more likely that external salt etc would cause corrosive effects unless you never drive / ride in freezing/near-freezing winter conditions or near the coast, or your cooling system was actually filled with plain tap water.

Parts I've had to replace myself down the years:

A coupla three water pumps, both/all rather stiff from rust on the vanes and axle, and from the spindle bearings wearing out.

A thermostat, because of ??? (who knows, never did quite figure it out, but it was jammed open. Probably encrusted corrosion-product buildup, a bit like a sticking diesel EGR when it's full of soot and wax)

One radiator, from what initially looked like corrosion damage, but what then seemed on later inspection to more likely be the physical effects of a poorly repaired front end shunt that smashed it and the AC condenser together, practically destroying the latter and leaving the radiator physically damaged, weakened, and prone to the condenser rubbing against it.

All on cars that were, at the time of having the work done, in the 8 to 13 year old range, with histories ranging from "looks pretty much perfect" to "largely unknown and dodgy at best". The worst I've seen on one younger than that is a perforated rubber coolant pipe that hadn't been properly secured at the factory and so had been rubbing against the sharp bit of a metal jubilee clip every time the front suspension had bounced over a bump in the 9 months since the vehicle was delivered.

[Walloper]