coolant change questions

I've yet to change it after 2 years, and the level is low -- none makes it up to the bottom line in the overflow can.

So.

Question 1:
Is there anything to it? I understand I just find the drain (must be at the bottom of the radiator or close to it). Open the drain. Then open the top. Once drained, flush, close drain, fill. Close. Run for a minute. Top off if needed.

Question 2:
What sort of coolant should I use? Is there a "special" type of that funky green stuff for bikes or is whatever's on sale at Kragen good enough for me?

Question 3:
Where am I supposed to dispose of the old coolant?

Question 4:
Considering I do street riding only (as of yet), should I even entertain the notion of using Water Wetter instead of coolant?

I await the opinions of the experts.

Thanks for any advice!

drain, flush, fill. bikes take regular coolant but buy a name brand as the cheap stuff is mostly water (its like a buck difference anyway) as far as disposal... i use a oil drain pan and bring the stuff to kragen or autozone in town, they have disposal there.

Use aluminum safe coolant (not a problem).

I personally use Propylene Glycol because it is animal safe (Sierra brand).

The drain is probably by your water pump, not on the radiator.

If you're just riding on the street, stick with a 50/50 mixture of quality coolant and distilled water. The corrosion resistance and freeze protection will be much better than with Water Wetter.

kurbycar32 said:

drain, flush, fill. bikes take regular coolant but buy a name brand as the cheap stuff is mostly water (its like a buck difference anyway)

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Well, I'd agree with not buying the "cheap stuff", but not with your reason why. You can't fake coolant with water, else stuff would boil at a lower temperature, etc. The difference is all in the additive package.

In any cooling system, you need anti-corrosion materials in the coolant. In a motorcycle, it's mostly aluminum surfaces that we have to deal with. The "cheap stuff"'s solution for that is to use silicates, which is basically really fine sand, held in suspension, that would "sandblast" the corrosion away. Good compromise for older cars, not good for motorcycles and some newer cars, who have sensitive water pump seals and bearings that are prone to leaking if bombarded with silicates (and crud that the silicates blasted off) for too long. These are usually green in color.

What you want is coolant that is based on "Organic Acids", and marked as "silicates free". These don't rely on physical stuff (sand) to abrade the corrosion away when it happens anyway, but keeps the corrosion from happening in the first place. These are usually "not green" in color, with the exception of Honda, which is green, just to confuse us.

Note that if you're switching from silicates to acids-based coolants, you should flush really well, or else you'll still have leftover abrasives in your system that the new stuff won't deal with. Bad bad bad.

Summary, my $0.02-
GOOD COOLANTS that I'd use:
Prestone Extended Life (Ethylene Glycol, orange)
Texaco/Havoline Dexcool (EG, orange)
Honda (both car and bike coolants, EG, green)

All run at 50% coolant, 50% distilled water.

BAD COOLANTS:
Prestone (yellow bottle, green color)
Peak
Zerex
Sierra (propylene glycol, slightly worse as an antifreeze and coolant than EG, but non-toxic)
Prestone Low Tox (PG, ditto)

Not an inclusive list, YMMV, etc. And the color of the coolant is just a dye anyway, so be sure to read the label.

Edit: contacted the mfgs, and confirmed that the propylene glycol coolants contain silicates, at 250 ppm. Low, but still no good for Honda water pumps. Moved from GOOD to BAD.

yea any prestone coolant is good. the red stuff or the green stuff. i like the red stuff - dont ask me why i dunno.

flush it out really damn good and run it constantly. flush it till you can run it for 2 or 3 minutes and when u drain it is totally clear. then add the radiator fluid. its not an exact science. just get it clean with the distilled water and add the coolant and it'll all mix together adventaully. some people dont even flush the system, they just drain out the stuff and add new stuff - course they do it a lot more often than us folks who DO IT THE RIGHT WAY and flush all the old crap out...

if ya need help w/ that or any other tune up kinda thing just PM me

I use Silkolene "pro cool" cause I'm lazy and it's a purdy blue

I bought the expensive stuff (since I don't remember the name) which were already 50/50 mixed from Santa Clara Cycle accessories. It was purdy blue , and was like $15 or so for half a galon, I believe. It was more than enough for my little 250.

Everything else has been answered above. I think the most improtant part of changing fluids yourself is disposing of the used/left over stuff responsibly. to you for asking!

Thank you all for the advice.

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to take care of it this weekend. But instead I have new patio furnature and a new gas grill.

moomoo said:

Thank you all for the advice.

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to take care of it this weekend. But instead I have new patio furnature and a new gas grill.

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Cool. BBQ at moomoo's.

i just bought a bottle of Water Wetter. Was that a bad choice? Should I not use it?

YelloJello said:

i just bought a bottle of Water Wetter. Was that a bad choice? Should I not use it?

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You can use it. It's just that for the street, it's good to have the corrosion protection of antifreeze. Check the bottle. I think you can use the Water Wetter with antifreeze.

bsd43 said:

Well, I'd agree with not buying the "cheap stuff", but not with your reason why. You can't fake coolant with water, else stuff
Note that if you're switching from silicates to acids-based coolants, you should flush really well, or else you'll still have leftover abrasives in your system that the new stuff won't deal

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Do you recommend flushing with distilled water or is it ok to flush with say, a garden hose?

Also, on your F4i the coolant drainage points are at the water pump cover and in front of the engine block.

You will want to get the old stuff out from both points in a catch pan. When you add water for a flush, you are gonna find the green coolant color will remain for about another 2 gallons of water through the system so be ready with that catch pan.

Once the green is gone, roll it outside and flush away.

As far as disposal, the best thing is to check with a Kragen or Pep Boys for a disposal tank.

Some municipalities also allow you to flush the stuff down a toilet since the waste water is treated. This is not my favorite thing to do but I am by no means a waste water treatment expert so I cannot say it is fine.

Mike Baldwin said:

Do you recommend flushing with distilled water or is it ok to flush with say, a garden hose?

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Garden hose is fine... Just don't mix the 50/50 with tap water.

As for recycling, since antifreeze is a glycol, it's technically a combustible liquid. I usually just pour it down the drain (NOT storm drain, some drain that hooks up to water treatment), with the water on full high to dilute it further. Same with brake fluid, another glycol-based liquid.

Oil, on the other hand, I take to a proper recycling center...

Edited my post from 2 months ago with new info -- that the propylene glycol products I listed (Prestone Low-Tox, and Sierra) do contain silicates. FWIW.

I recently replaced the coolant on my F4i with Maxima Coolanol (http://www.maximausa.com/products/misc/coolanol.asp). It's ethylene-glycol, but the website says it is also a " extremely low-silicate fluid". Am I ok running Coolanol in my bike?


found out for myself

"Our Coolanol is a very low silicate formula and contains less than 800 ppm of silicate. We have no documented water pump failures using our Coolanol in Honda motorcycles or any other brand (in fact we have 4 Hondas in the shop that all use Coolanol.) The reason we have a small amount of silicate in our formula is because silicate is a very effective corrosion inhibitor for aluminum and as you know our motorcycles’ systems are almost all aluminum. You should feel very comfortable with Coolanol – it’s one of the leading coolants in the industry.

Sincerely,
Danny
Maxima Racing Oils"

SpeedyCorky said:

flush it out really damn good and run it constantly. flush it till you can run it for 2 or 3 minutes and when u drain it is totally clear. then add the radiator fluid. its not an exact science. just get it clean with the distilled water and add the coolant and it'll all mix together adventaully.

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sorry, a little confused here. so i when i do my drain and flush, i should run water into the radiator til it runs clear right? And someone mentioned that it'll take about 2 gallons, so should I be collecting these 2 gallons taking it somewhere proper to dispose of or letting it run down the driveway to the sewer?

i know to collect the old coolant for recycle...so that's covered.

You should be collecting it and recycling it. Nothing should go down the storm drain.

SpeedyCorky said:

yea any prestone coolant is good. the red stuff or the green stuff. i like the red stuff - dont ask me why i dunno.

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Well, red is faster than green.