The Mitsubishi Pajero Owners Club®

[dennisrobinson53]

2006 lwb 3,2 elegance.
I have had for 5 years and in all that time the coolant has been clean, with blue antifreeze.
Garage has always checked level of antifreeze at services.
recently fitted new thermostat, ( early December), but had no change in the coolants appearance.
Doing weekly check this weekend noticed the coolant in the header tank looked dirty. checked in radiator and coolant in there was dirty too. Muddy brownish appearance.

Any comments??

Going for next service soon.

[Google]

[alienidea]

You could have just dislodge some when you changed out the stat .Next flush change i would flush both ways rad and block.I did use a rad flush fuild ..not sure if it really worked tho  

[Craig-SM]

At 5 years old it probably past it's best and time to replace. The thermostat is just in front of the oil cooler and the engine block drain which normally blocks up with silt form the system. During the change, as already suggested, it's probably disturbed and now dirtying the coolant.

[assassin]

Blue? 5 years old?

Two immediate issues, wrong anti freeze and too old.

Blue anti freeze is generally the traditional anti freeze which requires changing every 2 years and yours is a MK3 which requires long life anti freeze and lasts for 5 years.

Remove the bottom hose and drain it out, removing the hose allows the dross to drain out as running without protection for that long will ensure large particles will be in your engine, push hose back on and fill with clean water, pull hose off and drain, repeat until it runs clean.

Fill with clean water and run until hot as this dilutes anything in any voids and in the rear heater pipes, drain and repeat until it runs clear.

Fill with clean wateer and coolant system cleaner and run until hot, follow instructions for cleaning on container, drain, flush out and dump 5 litres of the correct long life anti freeze into the cooling system and top up with water.

[dennisrobinson53]

Thanks for all the advice,
Spent all day flushing out until it all ran clear.
Alas, assasin, I did not read your post about using Red long life until too late.
I can always change at next serviced.
BTW I used holts 2 pack radflush

[Craig-SM]

[dennisrobinson53]

No yellow deposits seen in any of the flushes, or in the top of the radiator.

After using Part 1 of the Holts 2 pack flush, the drainings were reddish/rust coloured, decreasing in each flush.
After adding part 2 of the Holts 2 pack the drainings were black, or blackish decreasing in each flush
Only when the drainings were virtually fully clear did I add the antifreeze, about 50/50 blue/water.
One other point, when running the engine for 10 minutes  at each stage, there seemed to be little evidence of coolant flow across the top of the radiator.
Should I have seen a very positive flow of coolant across the top of the radiator?
Would that be correct?

[dennisrobinson53]

Sorry, about the yellow metal content. did not quite understand that. Anyway, there was no noticeable contamination in the top of the rad in any of the flushes.

Yes I did notice that there is a noticeably lower temperature shown on the gauge. ( probably 3  or 4 degrees below the horizontal whereas before the gauge was level/horizontal)

[Craig-SM]

The yellow metal comment related to brass and copper but the MK3, like most modern cars, use aluminium now in the radiators and heater matrix. It was the brass that corroded in the older systems

You don't see much floor across the radiator, just a bit of disturbance. Should have mentioned to have the front raised higher to make it easier to bleed the air out the coolant system. If you see coolant at the top of the radiator and the overflow bottle is remains at the correct level and with the temp gauge where you stated, then you've done it right.

[dennisrobinson53]

Proper Job then!

Thanks