hi another noob question
just bought some halfords ready mixed coolant antifreeze
says silicate free is this ok to use in the cooling system
am going to flush with deionised water refill
cheers

Yes, should be no worries with that.

Silicates are rumoured to damage rubber water pump seals, so non silicate coolants are good, but i've never had any problems with water pump seals and silicates. The other side of the argument is that the coolant sealant clearance is way too small to accept silicate particles to cause mechanical damage.. So dont worry about it, however DONT flush your cooling system with de-ionised water or distilled water. They act as acids stripping metal ions freely from the aluminium and you will damage your cooling system flushing with pure distilled or de-ionised water.Its ok to mix 50:50 antifreeze with distilled water, but pure is corrosive. Just google it and you'l see a multitude of articles about the acidic nature of de-ionised water.

MexicanGringo wrote:Silicates are rumoured to damage rubber water pump seals, so non silicate coolants are good, but i've never had any problems with water pump seals and silicates. The other side of the argument is that the coolant sealant clearance is way too small to accept silicate particles to cause mechanical damage.. So dont worry about it, however DONT flush your cooling system with de-ionised water or distilled water. They act as acids stripping metal ions freely from the aluminium and you will damage your cooling system flushing with pure distilled or de-ionised water.Its ok to mix 50:50 antifreeze with distilled water, but pure is corrosive. Just google it and you'l see a multitude of articles about the acidic nature of de-ionised water.

Silicate particles can also damage the blades on the water pump too, there high revving thin aluminium, I have a picture somewhere of a honda one thats eaten away but not rusty.

When flushing the collant system i usually use a hose-pipe, can get lots of water through it.

Disconnect the lower rad hose from the water pump and flush from the filler cap, then put the hose in the water pump and flush from there too, and reverse flush through the rad.

If it's really cruddy then remove the thermostat and the two drain bolts underneath the front exhaust headers and flush it from all directions until it's clear.

50/50 antifreeze / distillied water mix will be fine

can i flush through with tap water
so many stories about distilled and de ionised water
for flushing through dont know what to do now
cheers

i live in a hard water area

Tap water contains minerals that precipitate out onto the coolant system walls, not a problem for flushing but for running its better to use distilled & anti-freeze. Like Neosophist said plug a hose in the rad and flush it thoroughly. Its also good to run rad flush for 50k's or so to remove scale buildup, then flush thoroughly.

Yep when I said hosepipe I mean connected to a tap :D

Good pressure and flush it all out every which way you can stick the hose pipe in.

If you have a neglected system thats been run with normal water and no antifreeze then you can use a chemical cleaner to descale the system if it is really bad.

I used holts 2 part chemical cleaner from halfords, it's pretty good.

flush the rad system fully and fill it up with tap water (your only going to discard it)

put in step 1, chemical cleaner and run the system upto temp, drain it and refil with mroe tap water and put in number 2 (chemical neutraliser).

discard and fill with coolant / distilled water mix.

Had some great results with it, dont' be tempted to buy the 'fine sand' type cleaners that are just abrasive.

once again thankyou guys

Sound advice, think I'll give my VFR a flush at xmas when I'm back home.