low coolant / add water?

[Sir_Traveller]

My coolant level is about 2 inches lower than the cold level, do I have to buy and add coolant even though I am not driving the RV right now ? ( its hooked up at an RV park ) Can I just add distilled water?

I will eventually add coolant before I drive it in the future of course but my question is regarding the current situation

I appreciate any ideas and suggestions …

[jeromep]

fred42 wrote:


Perhaps one of you could help me understand if someone has mixed the yellow and green. If so, I should replace. I can see green on the top of the gold.

Probably not a huge problem. It isn't fair to say coolant is coolant, but in a pinch, if you have a need to keep the system full between services (this means you have a leak) or if you are on the road and need to top off, mixing is probably not the worst thing to do, so long as you get cooling system maintenance done when it is convenient. Ideally a good shop will know the proper coolant to put in after a repair or flush.

[fred42]

I have not changed or added coolant to my 2006 f53 as I bought it used. I am not familiar with the yellow gold coolant and have never used it in other vehicles. My 2006 chassis manual says:

• Add Motorcraft Premium Gold Engine Coolant (yellow-colored), VC-7–A (U.S., except CA, OR and NM),
VC-7–B (CA, OR and NM), meeting Ford Specification WSS-M97B51–A1.
Note: Use of Motorcraft Cooling System Stop Leak Pellets, VC-6, may darken the color of Motorcraft Premium Gold Engine Coolant from yellow to golden tan.
• Do not add/mix an orange-colored, extended life coolant such as Motorcraft Specialty Orange Engine Coolant, VC-2 and VC-3 (US) or CXC-209 (Canada), meeting Ford specification WSS-M97B44–D with the factory-filled coolant. Mixing Motorcraft Specialty Orange Engine Coolant or any orange-colored extended life product with your factory filled coolant can result in degraded corrosion protection.

Perhaps one of you could help me understand if someone has mixed the yellow and green. If so, I should replace. I can see green on the top of the gold.

[jeromep]

I found this link to a coolant type chart at Ford Parts. 2003 looks like the year that Ford switched from green coolant to yellow/gold coolant.

https://parts.ford.com/content/dam/ford-parts/resources/motorcraftpdf/Antifreeze_Coolant_Usage_Chart.pdf

Click here.

Has your rig had a coolant flush in the past? If so, the shop that did the flush may have not put the correct coolant back in. Maybe, maybe not. If you look at the chart you will notice that there were still some vehicles that were using the green coolant about midway through the manufacturing year of 2003, but it looks like Ford made the decision to move to yellow coolant across the entire product line. I doubt there were any mechanical changes done to accommodate for this. That would indicate some interchangeability between the coolant types, but as others have indicated the yellow has a longer lifespan than the green.

I would not mix green and yellow. If you felt like changing back to yellow, then fix your leak, flush your entire system, then refill with yellow.

[Sir_Traveller]

thanks to all for your time and suggestions, everything was helpful... I will start by checking the cap ... since I will not drive it for now, I won't add anything till I am ready to move, meanwhile I will try to find the matching coolant which appears to be green through the recovery tank

[JRscooby]

NRALIFR wrote:
For those who do your own coolant flush and fills, a good tool to have when it’s time to refill the system is a coolant lift. As complex as the plumbing can be on an engine nowadays, it almost impossible to get all the air out of some areas without one.

They can also be used to check for leaks, as they can pull a vacuum strong enough to flatten the big radiator hoses. Some leaks will show up better with vacuum than pressure.

I’ve got a UView Airlift, but there are other brands available.

:):)

Probably a good idea. DW's car, park with front about 6 inches high, and can fill like a old one.

JoeH wrote:
When you get ready to drive it, top it off then.

But, I would also look at the "overflow" container as well as the cap. On my F-53, that canister is pressurized and I had a cap go bad which resulted in lost coolant. A few years latter, the actual canister developed a crack which also caused a fluid loss.

This type of tank is often used to reduce the problem NRALIFR mentioned.

[JoeH]

When you get ready to drive it, top it off then.

But, I would also look at the "overflow" container as well as the cap. On my F-53, that canister is pressurized and I had a cap go bad which resulted in lost coolant. A few years latter, the actual canister developed a crack which also caused a fluid loss.

[NRALIFR]

For those who do your own coolant flush and fills, a good tool to have when it’s time to refill the system is a coolant lift. As complex as the plumbing can be on an engine nowadays, it almost impossible to get all the air out of some areas without one.

They can also be used to check for leaks, as they can pull a vacuum strong enough to flatten the big radiator hoses. Some leaks will show up better with vacuum than pressure.

I’ve got a UView Airlift, but there are other brands available.

:):)

[JRscooby]

jeromep wrote:

JRscooby wrote:

Unless you where checking the pressurized part of the system when it was cold, you where gambling. Engine gets up to temp, coolant expands, forcing some into the tank. Then as it cools/contracts it is drawn from the tank to keep full. But a leak that can let air in means the tank can stay full but the system gets low.
In the OP's case, where the engine is setting and maybe slowly bleeding, the level can drop enough to let engine rapidly overheat when started, and the gauge never read hot because the sending unit is dry.

And that is why I got it schedueled into a mechanic for service as soon as I discovered it. Maybe I should have been more specific, but any in-between driving I did with it was to a scheduled generator service appointment which had been booked a few weeks before I discovered the leak, and then to the shop that handled the radiator.

I'm not sure about your neck of the woods, but getting an appointment for any kind of mechanical service has about a 2-week lead time under current conditions, except for things like oil changes, tire changes, and basic maintenance. Anything deeper than that has a pretty significant lead time. The local generator specialist had nearly a 2 week lead time when I started with them, and the mechanic I went to also had about a 2 week lead time when this issue occurred.

All of this really blew a hole in our late summer, early fall, camping possibilities.

I know nothing about scheduling any work, have always done my own.
But I assume you are not the only person to read the posts. OP, and many others have discussed low coolant level in the overflow tank. Nobody has mentioned removing the pressure cap to be sure the most important part of system is full. Check that first. If it is full, will not overheat, unless other problem. But if the level in tank is low because the pressure side is low, filling the tank will not prevent overheat.

[time2roll]

I would add premix coolant so that you are 1/3 up from the low mark. This allows you to be ready to roll at any time without this becoming an issue.

[jeromep]

JRscooby wrote:

Unless you where checking the pressurized part of the system when it was cold, you where gambling. Engine gets up to temp, coolant expands, forcing some into the tank. Then as it cools/contracts it is drawn from the tank to keep full. But a leak that can let air in means the tank can stay full but the system gets low.
In the OP's case, where the engine is setting and maybe slowly bleeding, the level can drop enough to let engine rapidly overheat when started, and the gauge never read hot because the sending unit is dry.

And that is why I got it schedueled into a mechanic for service as soon as I discovered it. Maybe I should have been more specific, but any in-between driving I did with it was to a scheduled generator service appointment which had been booked a few weeks before I discovered the leak, and then to the shop that handled the radiator.

I'm not sure about your neck of the woods, but getting an appointment for any kind of mechanical service has about a 2-week lead time under current conditions, except for things like oil changes, tire changes, and basic maintenance. Anything deeper than that has a pretty significant lead time. The local generator specialist had nearly a 2 week lead time when I started with them, and the mechanic I went to also had about a 2 week lead time when this issue occurred.

All of this really blew a hole in our late summer, early fall, camping possibilities.

[JRscooby]

jeromep wrote:
I had a slow, "fillable", coolant leak this summer. For a couple short trips I filled the reserve tank to compensate for the leak, but any time I got the rig up to temperature, I'd see the leak under the rig after I parked, presumably directly below where the compromise existed, and the leak would only really occur when the system was at pressure. Once the engine had cooled off and pressure had returned to atmospheric levels, the leak would disappear. But the reserve tank always told the true story because it was always low on the old marker when the engine was cold.

I refilled my overfill tank with straight coolant (older 460 V-8, so old tech), just to make sure I didn't run low or overheat. I added much less than a half gallon over the few weeks I had to run with the leak, which shouldn't have messed significantly with the coolant/water ratio, much.

Took the rig into a mechanic, and after a rather expensive total radiator replacement, no leak, as it should be.

Unless you where checking the pressurized part of the system when it was cold, you where gambling. Engine gets up to temp, coolant expands, forcing some into the tank. Then as it cools/contracts it is drawn from the tank to keep full. But a leak that can let air in means the tank can stay full but the system gets low.
In the OP's case, where the engine is setting and maybe slowly bleeding, the level can drop enough to let engine rapidly overheat when started, and the gauge never read hot because the sending unit is dry.

[jeromep]

I had a slow, "fillable", coolant leak this summer. For a couple short trips I filled the reserve tank to compensate for the leak, but any time I got the rig up to temperature, I'd see the leak under the rig after I parked, presumably directly below where the compromise existed, and the leak would only really occur when the system was at pressure. Once the engine had cooled off and pressure had returned to atmospheric levels, the leak would disappear. But the reserve tank always told the true story because it was always low on the old marker when the engine was cold.

I refilled my overfill tank with straight coolant (older 460 V-8, so old tech), just to make sure I didn't run low or overheat. I added much less than a half gallon over the few weeks I had to run with the leak, which shouldn't have messed significantly with the coolant/water ratio, much.

Took the rig into a mechanic, and after a rather expensive total radiator replacement, no leak, as it should be.

[NRALIFR]

It doesn’t matter where he is.

Antifreeze doesn’t just lower the freezing point of water, it raises the boiling point as well.

That’s why it’s called both “antifreeze” and “coolant”.

:):)

[Ivylog]

Did you miss this? He’s in Southern California...do nothing or add distilled water.