A video by Eric the car guy
Cooling systems are vital to any car running correctly, and are often time mis-diagnosed. This is because a lot of technicians today over think it, and often times forget to check the little things. This article is aimed at the backyard mechanic or everyday do it yourselfer. It will help you to understand how to properly pressure test your vehicles cooling system. This is one of the simplest, yet most effective tests for diagnosing a cooling system.
Coolant Flush tools Uview 570000 Robinair 75700
How to properly flush your cooling system manually
Your vehicle’s cooling system can become corroded after years of use. This corrosion occurs from the minerals in your coolant collecting inside your cooling system. Some other damage may occur over time due to old age of your vehicle’s cooling system. Another damaging factor could be that your vehicle has some sort of mechanical malfunction which damaged the cooling system.
Any time is a good time to test your coolant but most important is when winter months are approaching. I know that there are many other articles on how to check your engines coolant for the proper mixture. I am not saying that any of these methods are incorrect.
I am going to discuss a method in this article, which I find to be the most accurate method possible. The problem with some of the other methods such as the floating ball method is that there are many different kinds of coolants out there. This means that you have to have the exact tester for those coolants to make the gauge read accurately. Sometimes you may also be unsure what type of coolant is in the vehicle, and you then don’t know what tester to use. This can also lead to using an incorrect tester and getting incorrect reading that either say your coolant is the correct mixture when it is not, or else saying it needs more antifreeze when it does not.
The method this article is going to focus on is using a refractometer. A refractometer, such as this ATD3705 Coolant Refractometer or Robinair 75240 I have found to be the most versatile, accurate and economical way of checking cooling systems.