Radiator Deliming/Flushing or replacement

I feel like a douche for making so many different threads but I don't think a big cluttered thread is any better.
At the moment I'm doing everything in my abilities to get my bike to it's best before this upcoming season (In Ohio that means probably late February). Right now I'm working on the cooling system.
The one problem I'm thinking about is lime buildup in my radiators. I don't think its enough to cause a huge problem but i'd like to clean them as good as i can just for peace of mind. A radiator shop quoted me at $60 per radiator to boil them out with caustic soda and there's no way I'm paying that for the tiny radiators. I guess my question is do you guys have any methods you use in old brass radiators to get out lime without destroying them? or is there any other upper radiator i can swap on from another bike that will fit and work any better?

 

I have heard of folks using CLR to break up the crud in the radiator, you can pick it up anywhere including the grocery store.

 

How come you have lime buildup? Run coolant instead of tap water or at least bottled, distilled or DI water. Several proprietary coffee pot cleaners will do. How did you determine you had lime buildup in the first place?

If your radiator dude is boiling out many of the non-brass radiators on cars with caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) He will be retiring early..

 

Well the lime isn't my fault, I picked it up with 11k miles from the original owner less than a year ago and took the whole coolant system apart to do some maintenance and found the buildup inside the radiators.
CLR says on the bottle not to use it on copper or brass but if it won't cause a bad chemical reaction I'll definitely check it out.
And that's one of the only radiator shop in my area with a boiling tub that still does that due to most modern radiators being made of aluminum.

 

other things to use, Coke, white wine or white vinager

 

well I was thinking about using something to soak in it for a couple days and try to get a lot of stuff out that way. Then when it's put back together run some sort of cleaner or distilled water and vinegar through it to try to get out any other buildup out of the whole system before new coolant goes in.

 

go w/ coke, just make sure you flush it out well.
I would only let it sit ( coke ) over nite then flush, repeat if ness.
flush after the water and vineger as well.

 

I was tempted to use CLR but I was thinking about diluting it a little bit so its not as acidic.
I'll do the coke twice in a row and see if I make any progress, if not i'll go to vinegar and other stronger solutions.

 

No blame attached. Your water jackets are affected too. Best IMO to know what you are dealing with. Google "limescale" and much of the guesswork will become homework.

Somehow a nice Chablis or a Cuba Libre might be great when you get rid of all that precipitate but running it through your engine's cooling system ain't all that cool..

Household vinegar is + - 5% acid. Limescale is base. A better acidic solution would be some water and citric acid. Citric acid can be bought in any wine and beer making store..

 

so i suppose you mean soak them in the citric acid. What should i use once the whole system is back together to clean out the other components that are on the bike without compromising the thermostat or other components.

 

Nope, I would use a proprietary descaler for liquid cooled internal combustion engines that somebody allowed to get all crudded up with limescale.

I don't know for sure but I would submit the thermostat and the temp sensor are scaled up and possibly shot. I'd also check out the thermistor.

A cooling system failure from blockage or something as elementary as a split hose can mean a blown head gasket at one end or overheating until the oil becomes the coolant and you blow your engine.

It's your bike. I don't go for most of these home remedies when it comes to major subsystems on engines.

 

I just put in a new thermostat that opens about 10 degrees cooler, and the temp sensor seems to work fine. And if the thermistor is the switch that activates the fan i just got a brand new one that turns on 10-20 degrees cooler. I'm also going to put all new hoses on i just want to make sure the system is fairly clean.

 

Cool..

See if you can find a pic on one of the search engines showing what a cross section of limescale looks like on say a water heater of even the calrod in a tube in a coffeemaker. If you want to really be sciency compare the capacity of a new version of your bike with a fresh fill with just water in your bike. The limescale has to go to make your engine run effeciently.

Sounds like too there is a radiator repair place other than the outfit that wanted to use a base on a base to fix your aluminum radiator. Ask around at a quality parts house too.

Unless you are in a big rush, hang in here for some commentary from some damn good wrenches and of course somebody who just has to give you the complete family history of thier collection of taxidermed Chihuahuas.

 

If the radiator looks nasty take it to the radiator shop and let them boil it. I have seen some nasty coolant in the past on other peoples shite. On my stuff, anytime I changed the anti-freeze to do a valve lash or what ever, it always came out looking nice. I still changed it though. Good luck, ride it like its stolen, they like that. Kinda like a woman if you get my jist. :wink:

 

Well it doesn't really look nasty. Maybe I have OCD, but I saw some white buildup on the inside and decided while I have it off to do all the other maintenance I might as well clean it. I ended up putting some deliming agent for coffee pots and various other appliances in some hot water and soaking the radiators over night. Ended up getting a decent amount of little white flakes and chunks to pour out of it. But even beforehand the water, if poured in one side and the radiator was tipped over it flowed easily over and out of the other side.

I want to make sure all the loose stuff is out of the pump and lines before its assembled, what do you guys think of running some distilled water through the bike while its on and have the hose coming off of the water pump in a bucket draining as I go?

 

Just my two-bits worth. Your bikes cooling system is engineered to run with coolant in a certain temperature range. IMO !! running cold water through your engine ain't a great idea.

If you were dealing with a Ford flathead V8 or a Chevvy stovebolt it would probably be OK. A technical marvel like a 100 hp. 45 cu in. bike engine. I don't think so..

Hopefully one of the better "wrenches" will chime in on this one.

 

I wouldn't imagine it would do too much damage. I just want to run a bottle or so of distilled water through the pump to get any debris out. As long as its before I warm the bike up it shouldn't make too much of a difference

 

Yep, the junkyards are full of bikes that have been "backyard" engineered.

 

your bike will heat up rather quickly...Like billy said ...its engineered to run at a specific temp... since you have the thermostat out...why do you need to have the bike running? just hook the hose up to one end and flush........ no starting needed.. the slap her back together and call it good Amigo.....

CR

 

I didn't know if you could get much of the junk out of the water pump area without the impeller spinning. I'll just get everything out that I can without running it.