coolant vs. water

[blazinzuk]

First thing that came to my mind was a bearing spinning and no I haven't seen such a thing only in the pretty picture books

 

[beater_k20]

i've seen it happen several times. it doesnt keep "full floating" though, it scores the fillet of the crank, and most of the time catches the parting line in the rod, and stacks on top of the other half, resulting in a siezed engine. that's exactly what i'm fixing right now with my '96 Grand Am.

 

[rumbly truck]

I serviced on a emd switcher locomotive in rock spring wyoming. It was on a 30 day service schedule,from one trip to the next it developed a antifreeze leak in the crankcase. It was making the oil milkshake. It also had a spun rod bearing.An EMD engine shares a common crankpin for two con rods, being two stroke they have compression against the rodbearing all the time.The upper shell locates into the blade rod, with two dowels. The bearing was spinning in the rod bore and around the crankshaft. The wrist pin was recieving oil, as the wrist pin bushing was still intact. This unit was in light service at the time , with about 250 hours between service. I point but,there something new when you spin wrenches for a living all the time

 

[sandawgk5]

So which is better for engine break in again i did not see an answer to his question and I am curious also. I did learn about locomotives and floating bearings though.

Thanks

Ira

 

[rumbly truck]

I use water so if you have problems, you can dump it on the ground with no mess or worries about catching it. Get the cam broke in, change the oil , dump the water. then add 50/50 distilled water and anti freeze.

 

[wazzabie]

How long can coleant be in the before flushing?

 

[beater_k20]

I serviced on a emd switcher locomotive in rock spring wyoming. It was on a 30 day service schedule,from one trip to the next it developed a antifreeze leak in the crankcase. It was making the oil milkshake. It also had a spun rod bearing.An EMD engine shares a common crankpin for two con rods, being two stroke they have compression against the rodbearing all the time.The upper shell locates into the blade rod, with two dowels. The bearing was spinning in the rod bore and around the crankshaft. The wrist pin was recieving oil, as the wrist pin bushing was still intact. This unit was in light service at the time , with about 250 hours between service. I point but,there something new when you spin wrenches for a living all the time

that's im real proud you can work on trains. this is ColoradoK5, the K5 represents a line of fullsize trucks produced by General Motors. to my knowledge, GM has never used a 2 stroke in a widely produced automotive application. furthermore, they havent used a locomotive engine. i'd like to personally thank you for wasting our bandwidth.

 

[rumbly truck]

As long as you want, but fresh cast iron will start to oxidize on contact with water. If you are going to run straight water, you need to run a water treatment package of some sort. You will have no freeze protection though. So I try to keep straight water in for minimal amount of time.

 

[rumbly truck]

k20 I appoligize if I have offended you. EMD locomotives until this past year have been a product of GM. All engines run on a few mechanical principals, big or little.they all have pistons and rods that move and go bang. If I offended any one else I appoligize. Just trying to help, SORRY

 

[CyberSniper]

Check the properties of glycol and water, you'll see that water absorbs heat more readily than glycol, which means it's a better coolant in that regard alone.

Then check out the antifreeze manufacturers web sites, and look at their charts of "boilover" protection. You'll notice that most (all I've seen) have in the fine print "tested at 15PSI". Then find the boiling point of water at 15PSI, and you'll see that antifreeze does NOT add as much temp to the boiling point of water as pressure alone does. (figure out boiling point of water at 15PSI, then subtract that from the manufacturers data, it's something like 15* IIRC) They'd like you to believe that, which is why they show data collected at 15PSI.

I've done all this research, I know why they call it "antifreeze". That's all it's good for, along with being a corrosion inhibitor and any lubricants/conditioners that are in it for seals.

50/50 mix of ethylene glycol and water raises the boiling temperature to 226° according to the people at Prestone that I emailed. After that, it's all about the pressure. About 2°/psi. This is assuming you're using distilled water. And you should so you don't have a mess in your cooling system.

 

[dyeager535]

In other words, water will boil at 242* in a 15PSI system, which is what most of us have.

If you are getting to 242* at break in, you've got something bad happening.

Use water and don't worry about it. Once you know everything is sealed up and in good working order, and the engine has gone through initial break-in, drain it, and use distilled water and antifreeze for whatever freeze protection you need. Personally, it's the lowest percentage of antifreeze necessary in my climate and it has caused me no troubles.

I've had a rebuilt engine overheat before, and it was a complete waste of antifreeze. Note to original poster: make sure your radiator is either new, or KNOWN good shape. If the new engine runs hotter than the old one (and it will on break-in) and your radiator worked on the old engine, it does not mean you won't have problems with overheating on the new engine. Looking at the insides of a radiator from the cap opening just doesn't cut it when talking about efficiency.

As with a cooler thermostat, if you need the additional (roughly) 16* of a 50/50 mix to keep you safe, (compared to 30* from system pressure alone) you've got other issues. Besides the fact, it still doesn't cool as well, so you're coolant system is less efficient in the first place.

 

[CyberSniper]

The cylinder heads usually run quite a bit hotter. I think that's why most older vehicles have the high pressure caps. I know it's quite common for newer vehicles, especially ones with the cap on the reservoir, to be 7lbs or less.

Unfortunately, my truck periodically sees 250°. Without the 16lb cap and the 50/50 mix I'd probably have ruined the motor by now. Normally it runs around 170° but in high RPM/high load/no movement conditions she gets hot.