I have a 2006 KR f350 with 45k miles. It is fairly new to me (only 3k miles), so I am not sure if the coolant has ever been flushed. I am just going to assume NO.

I live in the mountains so I don't get a long stretch of flat hwy to do a "real" delta test.

I am running T6 5w-40 and I am seeing EOT and ECT deltas range from 2 to 9 in situations from level for a short bit, to hill climbs and start/stops. When I crest a hill the delta gets above 15 but quickly comes back to less than 10.

I have read and heard about people doing a flush and stirring up all the gunk that in turn clogs the oil cooler. I obviously do not want that. However, I would like to keep things clean and working well.

1)What are your thoughts on my situation?
2)Should I use VC9 or not?
3)If I flush, what method should I use? (I have seen a couple different ones)

So... There you go, lets hear it!

Thanks

 

I would do what I am doing - I would drain the coolant and replace it with Ford Gold, so you don't need to flush but you get fresh coolant. Draining will take out a majority of any sediment, and the Ford Gold coolant is excellent as long as it doesn't get super-heated in a failing EGR cooler, which you are monitoring so that won't happen. You could simply test the coolant (Ford has a kit) and top up with Ford Gold. The only reason I am going to flush the coolant on my engine is because the oil cooler has failed (it's perfect so far, knock on wood) and I am changing it and the EGR cooler. Then - I will flush. Till then - not on your life. I drained the coolant on my 2005 engine and got well less than a teaspoon of sediment. I would also add a coolant filter.

Brian

 

I have a 2006 also. Wished I would have changed the coolant several years ago. I have a low mileage truck, but my deltas were over 15 before I got on this site and installed a SGII to monitor the truck. I believe age of coolant is partly responsible for any breakdown in the coolant. My truck had a lot of sand and jello type junk when coolant was drained. I flushed everything and changed out oil cooler and a lot of other things. I would definitely drain and replace coolant. Check what comes out. Wouldn't hurt to run some distilled water through the engine and see what it looks like and decide how to proceed. Agree with installing a coolant filter.

 

One way to tell how good your oil cooler is, is by how quickly is recovers from any temp spikes.

If it spikes and eventually cools down before too long, you're good to go. If it spikes to a difference of 15 and stays there no matter what, the cooler is getting clogged.

I would do the full flush with distilled water, no cleaners and then re-fill with EC-1 coolant.

Josh

 

How sensitive is EC-1 coolant if all the gold is not washed out
when you flush?
Inquiring Minds Want To Know

Sean

 

Instead of having 500,000 or million mile coolant you'll have 250,000 or 350,000 mile coolant.

And well who of us is expecting to keep our coolant that long anyways?

It's good to get as much of the old out though.

 

Your temps based on how I think you'd be driving based on what you said don't sound too bad.

Being that it's a new to you truck, for piece of mind and to establish your own base level, I would do as Josh suggests below and then monitor it from there. Make a plan to replace it again at 100k miles.

 

My circumstances are similar.

I choose to drain, rinse with distilled and refill with zertez gold. Shortly thereafter I installed a coolant filter as I found more sand than I expected in the drainage, nothing bad just enough sand to convince me of the benefits of filtration.

I am quite happy with my decision not to do a chemical flush.

 

Coolant filter asap. Change it after every three months and examine the filter to see what you find.

After running the filter for atleast 5000 miles, then I would consider rinsing with distilled or reverse osmosis water. I would drain and fill with reverse osmosis water MANY times. Include removing the thermostat and if possible fumoto block drains. The reverse osmosis water will help dissolve whatever it can, then you can fill with fresh coolant and pure water and watch what she does in terms of the filter.

For what it's worth, I VC9'd mine after filtering and finding relatively little casting sand in the filter. It probably took me about 20 drain and rinse with reverse osmosis water to get to clear water I could add coolant to. I used Zerex G05. I changed and VC 9 at 60,000 miles and I am at 95,000 now and my deltas are still fine. I have an old outlook monitor set to show ECT and EOT at all times.

 

Based on my experience recently, I would not use any chemicals.

I used restore on a 2004 with 100K and the original coolant. Delta would run between 10-15* before the flush. After the flush with restore and lots of water the delta went to 15-25*.

So, the truck is getting a oil cooler this week.

 

I did a distilled water flush at 30,000 miles and refilled with the Gold.No chemicals for me.

 

How long did you leave the Restore in for? I've never used the Restore, but I've done VC 9 on a few trucks, including my own. I never made things worse with it.

 

I thought the question was more like how much can you mix the two types of coolant. How harmful would it be if one does not get all the old coolant out? 20 flushes with thermostat removed and using the block drains should get most of it.



.

 

I ran the restore for 1.5 hours on high idle some and on the highway .

 

I never ran the VC 9 more than an hour.