Sealed for life radiator fluid

[Dave Russell]

RG,
I wondered about this also. I believe that you are talking about long-life-coolants. After some research I came to the conclusion that although they are used in most newer cars, they are questionable for older cars.
Here are a couple of links that shed some light on the subject.
https://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Downs/3837/dexcool.html
https://www.salemboysauto.com/faqs/faq-57.htm
D

 

[racing girl]

Anyone had any experience using a sealed for life radiator fluid? Are there any brands you'd recommend??

Thanks.

 

[Rick O.]

IMHO, the 5 year/100,000 mile coolants are not designed for our older LBC's. Modern cooling systems are mostly aluminum and plastic with no yellow metals and solder like LBC's. In fact, even with some cars build as late as the mid-90's, the new coolants are incompatible. With the LBC, you need to have the Zen of green coolant changeout every fall.

 

[racing girl]

Dave,
Thanks for the links. I'm going to check them out over the weekend.

We ran our Ginetta with this type of fluid for a couple of year in the UK (unfortunately I can't remember the brand) and everything was just fine. There's two reasons for changing the fluid now:-

a)The car has been sitting for the best part of 9 years so the system needs to be flushed.

b)Probably more important is the fact that the cars and a lot of personal belongings only arrived in Detroit last December. When we unpacked one of the boxes we came across a half a gallon of "something", not car related, that my father in law shouldn't have packed but did. Anyway, it was frozen solid!! So now we're concerned about the cars.... has to be done anyway but we hope that there won't be any ruptured pipes od hoses.

RG