Colour change issues within a water cooling system.

[mayhem]

Colour change issues within a water cooling system.

Advisory

We at Mayhems has been doing some extra investigations due to our new support system. We have found issues with flux used by some radiator manufacturers that has not been fully removed pre sale of the rads. This flux can stay with in a system for a very long period of time and can be directly related to issues reference colour change of lighter colours such as Yellow, Orange and Red.

Mayhems suggest the following.

At bare minimum ALL Rads should be flushed with flowing hot tap water (40c to 60c) to help remove and loosen off the water soluble flux from the manufacturing process. For a minimum of 30 minutes.

You can Improve and speed up this process by using Part 2 of the Mayhems Blitz Kit with hot water to aid and speed up this cleaning. Flush with hot water afterwards is still required.


To avoid any favouritism this should be applied to ALL Radiator manufacturers or OEM Radiators

 

[Deshman]

Has common knowledge changed with regards to passing non-filtered water through w/c systems?

 

[RickPlaysWarr]

Has common knowledge changed with regards to passing non-filtered water through w/c systems?

Its obvious that they want the hot water to loosen up and get the flux out of the radiator. Then flush with distilled to get all the minerals out. Or I would say just heat up the distilled water and use that.

--Rick--

 

[mayhem]

Flushing with tap water is fine as long as you use DI water afterwards to clean out any impurities from the Rad.. As said above from RickPlaysWarr the water is to remove / loosen off the flux.

 

[Mysterae]

Does no one else think that 30C to 60C for 30 minutes is a little excessive and wasteful?

 

[mayhem]

Does no one else think that 30C to 60C for 30 minutes is a little excessive and wasteful?

Or do you think throwing £30 worth of coolant down the drain every few months because you didn't clean / flush your rads out is more expensive?

 

[Dicehunter]

Or do you think throwing £30 worth of coolant down the drain every few months because you didn't clean / flush your rads out is more expensive?

This right here !

Mate of mine had the discolouring problem as he didn't rinse out his rad properly, He filled it with cold water and shook it a few times, Not exactly a proper clean.

I'd personally fill with hot water, Shake, Empty, Fill, Shake, Empty, Rinse and repeat for 30 minutes to save having to spend another £30 a month or 2 later.

 

[steverebo]

Good to know as I have just bought some pastel black coolant, I just set up a mini loop on my desk and ran hot water through it for 30 mins allowing some water to drain out and replace with more hot water and then flushed through with 2 lt of DI water.

I did notice that the hot water went a reddish colour after the initial 30 mins would that be the flux?

 

[mayhem]

Flux looks reddish brown but you allso have to contend with a natural occurrence called patina.

The hot flush will release, aid in removal of flux but over time copper has a self protecting action.

"patina copper oxidation"

Patina (/ˈpætᵻnə/ or /pəˈtiːnə/) is a thin layer that variously forms on the surface of stone; on copper, bronze and similar metals (tarnish produced by oxidation or other chemical processes);[1] on wooden furniture (sheen produced by age, wear, and polishing); or any such acquired change of a surface through age and exposure. Patinas can provide a protective covering to materials that would otherwise be damaged by corrosion or weathering. They may also be aesthetically appealing.

On metal, patina is a coating of various chemical compounds such as oxides, carbonates, sulfides, or sulfates formed on the surface during exposure to atmospheric elements (oxygen, rain, acid rain, carbon dioxide, sulfur-bearing compounds), a common example of which is rust which forms on iron or steel when exposed to oxygen. Patina also refers to accumulated changes in surface texture and colour that result from normal use of an object such as a coin or a piece of furniture over time.

This happens when rads are stood and left on a shelf even new rads have this and part one of the Mayhems Blitz kits deals with this issue.

If you flush and clean you rads properly you will fix a lot of issues before you start and no matter how new or how old your rads are, its best to clean them properly and correctly.

Colour change in coolants isn't that the coolant is bad its actually doing it job and suspending the crap found in your system (this is when you see colour change), most colour (not all) is due to the fact the user hasn't clean there system to an acceptable level. How ever we still see oddity's in this but there are an extreme rare occurrence.

 

[Asperatis]

Indeed doing a proper flush is very, very important. I used hot tap water, let it sit for a couple of minutes, poured half of the water out of the rad and then started dancing with it like crazy. I was surprised by the amount of partickes that came out of them.

I repeated this process at least 6-7 with each of my rads. Then I did the same with cold distilled to rinse any impurities left by the tap water. It requires some work, but I'd luch rather do this than having to drain and pay for coolant that's gone bad!

 

[SuB]

Can I ask what's in all the flush fluids? Last I heard one of them had some pretty nasty Acids in it?

 

[mayhem]

All MSDS Sheet are avilable direct from our Site -> http://support.mayhems.net/pages/mayhems-msds-sds-sheets

This is Mayhems support site were all information pertaining to the work we can and the products we sell can be found and supported.

 

[steverebo]

Is this normal when filling the loop with pastel coolant for the first time?

I flushed the rads exactly as stated

 

[mayhem]

Bubbles are normal as advised in other thread you need to tip rads ect ect to get them out. It takes time to do.

 

[steverebo]

Cheers it's not the bubbles that was worrying my it was the foamy look to them which I have realised now is something unique to pastel coolants