waterless coolant

classicalgreen

classicalgreen

Active Member
just bought Evans waterless coolant of my rover V8pb6 . 1974 it suffered overheating and coolant loss in traffic and when idling for any length of time.
did a new inlet manifold gasket and heater to rad pipe under manifold in stainless steel . checked small bleed hole in upper inlet manifold and was clear ( small drill pokes through easily ) as rad cap is new (ish) will be flushing out to remove water and refilling with the Evans no water coolant. hopefully this summer no more issues! not cheap but found a local supplier after contacting Evans directly from website .
went to purchase at Motor parts Direct in clacton ( industrial estate -enterprise way) whom ordered it for me in morning and it was there in afternoon ! great service .
other point worth mentioning was chat with guy in store (manager?) tells me after asking what car i was putting it in, that they buy other companies up and stocks of old car parts. Cummins diesel pumps etc .
so may hold parts classic car or truck owners seek . sadly they don't have a web catalogue ( it runs into thousands of spare parts ) I think if clubs get together and form a common part request page? where members of any club can request part they seek.. this company and others could supply? making life easier as at moment e bay seems to be only way forward or odd supplier such as wins international ( supplied nearly all my spares apart from a handful form another well known rover supplier and of course e bay )
long diatribe almost over... the Evans website gives better answers about why to use and whom uses at moment . I like the fact it never needs changing ! though drawback is if we get a leak ? bust hose? it will be pricey refill. wondering if worth posting a pic of two as job progresses and results now and in say 6 months time?
 
Have considered the Evans waterless coolant but never tried it in any of my cars. Would be very interested to learn how it performs in your Rover.
 
classicalgreen said:
it suffered overheating and coolant loss in traffic and when idling for any length of time.
Click to expand...
If you are getting overheating problems its a sign there is something else wrong. In my late teens a friends father had a P6B automatic which had suffered overheating issues ever since he'd bought the car, at about 3 years old.
He only got to the bottom of it after the rad was replaced following a minor front end collision, from that point on the car kept cool in all conditions.
 
agree only an issue with system will cause overheating. as part of process checking leaks etc the pipe under inlet manifold was suspect as notice brown water stain etc at rear on net gasket area and onto bell housing. hence replaced the heater pipe under manifold with new. on looking at it carefully one can see a few rust at each end and cleaning up with wire brush showed a few micro pin hole perforations . as these are under and adjacent to rubber hose(s) am assuming I had a small leak there and thus loss of pressure may be cause of the over heating at idle and in traffic. still will be interesting to see result eventually when it hopefully gets back on road later this year. not surprised car has low mileage for its age as it seem to enjoy sitting in dusty cold garages all its life. going to try an get it to understand its supposed to be driven ! not just stuck away from life. now wheres that big hammer ....
 
Are you sure the radiator isn't sludged up?

That car I mentioned above was one of the very last p6's and could have been wrong from the factory as quality took a nose dive on the later cars. He spent a fortune on the thing in the first few years of ownership.
 
+1 for new rad - My car used to be fine on all but the very hottest (35C days) when in traffic, was never an issue whilst moving. The rad eventually died and needed replacement, so I got one from wadhams - it's rock-solidly reliable now whatever the weather.
 
Classical Green,

I would argue that assuming your coolant system is in good order, the main benefit of the waterless coolant is that the system runs at a lower pressure and hence should extend the life of the existing components and may reduce the potential for failure of seals, corrosion in the future.

I run a P6 with a 4 litre engine and the benefits of this coolant look good - of course this is in a queue behind more immediate jobs required on the car. I too would be interested in how you get on.
 
just used the pretreatment fluid as directed before filling with waterless coolant. didn't get any muck out and i did notice when i put little pinkie into heater outlet/inlet I got a nice rust coloured finger. so am in process of flushing rad again as after removing Adrian plug and assuming to was dry? found it was partially blocked with fine rust sludge. not happy that bottom of rad is clear. trouble being its an auto rad so have the gearbox pipes to remove too an they seem well solid ..well after 40 years! don't want to lose rad so have to play with that a bit or take a chance that power flush may wash most of muck out. will update in a few weeks? when back on road ( brakes need sorting next then exhaust so eta on road is around er... end of april -hopefully this april) working on house etc so time isn't easy to find .
 
FWIW the guys that did the valves & porting on my V8 heads said don't use it. I'm guessing it's because waterless coolant doesn't conduct heat away as well as a water/antifreeze mix so all else being equal you could end up with an engine running slightly hotter than before.
However, loads of people use it and I suppose it helps if the hoses/gaskets/water pump bearings are subject to lower pressure - just remember that if you've an overheating problem then this stuff won't fix it.
It boils at about 190°C so you could well end up totally frying an overheating engine?
My old plastic/aluminium radiator just about coped with a 3.5 engine but not the 4.6 that replaced it. A new copper/brass replacement fixed that so I'd suggest that would be worth thinking about (probably cheaper than the waterless stuff too!)
One more thing - is your ignition timing right, it's surprising just how much hotter it runs if retarded too much.
 
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