Technical Help! Coolant turned brown from red!!

[MrMigs08]

Guys!!

Myy poor marea is ill again well im not sure, recently did a coolant change, car has a stuck open thermostat and possible leaky injector, some odd sounds at low revs! but this is not the issue,

I recently did a change to mixed 50/50 halfords advanced red fluid, flushed the system with water doing a complete change, i also have a rusty radiator with a small leak somewhere *Doh!*, the coolant has now turned from that lovely highlighter red/orange to a slightly duller orangey/brown colour.

Now my diagnosis is/are:

Old coolant trapped in a pipe from the thermostat problem
Coolant additives are attacking radiator rust severely/harshy
Oil leaking into coolant (No mao in oil lid though! no steam/smoke during idle).
Halfords mix is wrong type from marea but i know people are running red in their coupes/fiats, can halfords red eat at something in the engine? heat pipes etc? its only meant for alluminium stuff iirc no idea what a 1.6 marea uses!

Any help would be appreciated!!

Cheers
Migs

 

[bluejohn125]

Hi Migs

Glad to see that work is continuing...

I had the same issue with my Brava 1.2... the problem is rusty sediment that has collected in your radiator over the years, with coolant neglect and lack of use.

You need to run the engine nice and hot with the heater on, then turn off and remove the bottom radiator hose... a big gush of cruddy coolant should come out. Then keep refilling the system / radiator with hot/warm water and maybe some rust inhibitor or degreaser (Persil, but not Fairy...). Don't bother running the engine and bleeding etc, just let it sit in the rad for 10 mins and empty it again with a big whoosh.

Repeat up to 10 times until the water coming out is clean, then refill again properly and run the engine hot with heater on and bleeding etc, all circulating properly.

Then refill correctly with new antifreeze.

You may be able to speed this up if you stick a hose through the rad bottom hose.

Of course if the rad is shot anyway it all becomes much simpler....

 

[MrMigs08]

Hey Blue,

Thanks for the reply matey, yep marea running really nicely atm, minus the slightly unsettled idle and temperature fault (Aatleast heating is still working!!), going to get a new rad i believe and thermostat and redo cooling system again! maybe should see about a new injector too while im at it, but i'l probably do this when the weather heats a bit.

Thanks for the reply mate, eased me up reading this days ago !

Migs.

 

[rat20v]

When i changed my radiaotr, i put a hosepipe through it and blasted it water to wash it all out, then i used paraflu from fiat main dealer, and mine was fine

 

[bluejohn125]

Yeah, can't beat Paraflu, but in general I think the blue stuff is best for these cars.

 

[MrMigs08]

Aye paraflu is good! but i wanted something a bit cheaper and noted that the coupe owners use red (Although probably the 2.0) red is quite strong from what i understand which makes sense as to why the coolants picking at the rust quite agressively!

Cars running great though i have to say, 1.6 engine seems pretty healthy!

(Got a tyre that keeps going down though! god damit haha)

 

[bluejohn125]

Update on my Brava.....

I've decided after repeating this whole process after a year and getting yucky orange / brown stuff out again, that I have a leak in the heater matrix that is allowing air to get in (causing rust) and coolant to get out (causing a confusing amount of dampness to get in the cabin and mist up the windows, regardless of what I did with the heater).

My mechanic confirmed that the water sits on a tray below the heater matrix and then just blows all over the cabin. You don't tend to get wet carpets etc.

I have cleaned the system out using Comma and Wynns radiator flush, next week during the service we will flush the heater with the hose and add new coolant and some Wynns Stop Leak which I am advised is a very good product and works more intelligently than others.

The ideal option is to change the heater matrix but this is a fairly major job involving a partial dashboard removal. Hopefully I will then have a fully serviced system that should do me for a few years.