Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/201186
maintenance | continued Consider switching all your trucks and equipment to ELCs. The new ELCs have become the factory fill for many equipment and truck OEMs. If you have new equipment or trucks with ELCs but you're still using conventional coolants in older equipment and trucks, consider upgrading the older engines to ELCs at the next change interval. The reason for this is simple – inventory management. If you have only one coolant in your equipment and inventory, you reduce to zero the chance that somebody will use the wrong coolant. ELCs are compatible with conventional coolants up to a point. An 80/20 mix of ELC and conventional coolant will still give you all the benefits and protection ELCs offer. But if get much more than 20 percent dilution with conventional coolant you start to lose the effectiveness of the ELC. If somebody in the shop or in the field repeatedly tops off with the wrong coolant you could be putting your engines at risk. Stede Granger, OEM technical services manager for Shell, says he's worked with fleets that tried to manage two types of coolants in the past, but ended up switching to one. "Some of the shops in this company ran 24 hours a day and if they ran out of one type of coolant, they'd substitute another. It just became better to have one coolant. It saved them quite a bit of money and their maintenance costs now are lower than they've ever been." Flush-and-fill is the best way to convert. If you follow your engine or equipment OEMs guidelines for cooling system flush-and-fill, you'll remove all but a tiny percentage of the old coolant and maximize the percent- 48 November 2013 | EquipmentWorld.com " But remember, some people can screw up an anvil. " age of ELC on the fill step. If for whatever reason you can only do a drain-and-fill, in most cases that will get you to within that 80/20 ratio. But flush-and-fill is the preferred method. "A flush-and-fill has to be done in a careful manner," says Colin Dilley, director of technology, Prestone Technology Center. "You have to make sure you drain everything. Once you've flushed it, the filling up is critical. You want to make sure you don't get any air pockets in the system." Dilley recommends you find out what the OEM says is the volume of the cooling system, add half that volume of coolant and half water. (Or adjust up to whatever your freeze point protection requires if you're working in cold climates.) Conversions Some coolant providers also offer what they call a conversion fluid. This is a package of ELC additives that can be put on top of a system that has conventional coolant already in it. You simply drain out 10 to 12 percent or so of the conventional coolant and put in the concentrated additives to fill the system back up. The benefit of a conversion fluid is that you don't have to spend the time to completely drain your cooling system and dispose of the old coolant. The only drawback is that it takes a bit longer for the full benefits of the ELC additives to take effect, says Snyder. If this is something you're considering, consult with your coolant supplier. Use good water When mixing ELC concentrate or topping up, it is important to use de-ionized or de-mineralized water. Water with chlorides or salts can lead to mineral scale formations inside your radiators, robbing you of one of the key benefits of ELC. "You have a big investment in your coolant and you don't want to mess that