orange water

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hoopfish

hoopfish

Well-Known Member
Posts
2,616
Location
East Sussex
Got rid of my noisey water pump today,the fins resembled a big lump of rust, all of the water that drained out was orange and rusty.
Any ideas why, is this normal or a sign of bad things to come?.

Regards

Terry.
 
My recent D1 purchase was not dissimilar. perhaps not quite as bad, but certainly plenty of rust in the water - I put it down to well beyond end of life antifreeze, and spent some time flushing and back flushing the rad and the engine itself. Ran it up to temp with just plain water in, and dumped it, then let it cool and did this a few times until it was clean water coming out.

This seems to have worked - its done a couple of thousand miles since, including some motorway, and there have been no problems yet.....

Best of luck with it!
 
Disco1BFG said:
I put it down to well beyond end of life antifreeze
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly, antifreeze/coolant is also a rust inhibitor as long as there's still a decent volume of glycol present. Or it could just be that there was no antifreeze to begin with (I've seen this a few times over the years).
 
hoopfish said:
Got rid of my noisey water pump today,the fins resembled a big lump of rust, all of the water that drained out was orange and rusty.
Any ideas why, is this normal or a sign of bad things to come?.

Regards

Terry.
Click to expand...

As already said it's a sign of no or very old anti-freeze.
The trouble is you don't know where the rust has settled so you'd do well to flush and back flush at least. You might even consider taking the rad out and flushing it upside down, that's where you find the thinnest part of the water circulation system.
 
Totally agree, old or no antifreeze, this does cause sludgy deposits that block the radiator core.
Definitely flush the rad out as well as the block, run it for a week or so then drain it again and refill with good quality mix.
The sludge is bad it clots on water ways in the head and builds layers even on the hoses so dont skimp on the thorough clean up :)
 
Blimey, clean up time then!.
If I'm honest I will say that I am guilty of topping up water and not adding anti freeze.
Flush flush Sunday flush.
 
I usually flush mine bout october.i disconn3ct rad pipes let it drain then hose pipe in the header tank and thermostat house and tad flush all out with water and then refot pipes and refil and bleed system
 
hoopfish said:
Is there anything I can use to flush with, some kind of kick ass chemical?
Click to expand...

I know in the days of all cast iron engines with little or no aluminium bits to the cooling system you could buy certain acidic based flushing chemicals which you added to plain water then ran the engine up to temperature for a time then drained the system, flush out with clean water then add your coolant conditioner, with it's ethyl/glycol anti freeze anti corrosion stuff.
In all probability there will be products available to chem flush your alloy component infested Disco engine/cooling system, (as are all cars now), something that will not reduce all the alloy bits to soup, I've not had to use any yet as I keep the coolant conditioner up to date, change it every two years, but I reckon you will find something.
 
I had thaïs with my td5 and Kept flushing and running to tempreture and flushing again.whilst doing this I searched the Internet and found that some people use a dishwasher tablet in the water to clean the coolant system as this doesn't foam up and breaks down a lot of stuff in your coolant system and doesn't eat pipes and other stuff.
But didn't have the guts to do it :suspicious: maybe there is someone on here who can clarify this.
 
people use dishwasher tablets to flush oil out of the coolant system.. it would knack aluminium if left long mind
 
trax said:
people use dishwasher tablets to flush oil out of the coolant system.. it would knack aluminium if left long mind
Click to expand...

I'm off on a run of about 80 miles today, if I stuck a dishwasher tablet in the water then flushed it when I got back I'm thinking this should be OK?

Thanks for all the help.
 
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