All -
>From all the dicussion on boiling points and thermal conductivity of
coolants, I presume that many on this list have not seen the article by
Gregory Fieldson, "Coolants and Corrosion: A Treatise," on the SOL tech
page (http://www.team.net:80/sol/tech/). I suggest everyone interested
read it - and peruse all the other good info to be found on the tech page.
For the record, Fieldson suggests using distilled water in cooling systems
to avoid deposits from the dissolved salts in hard water.
Over the years, I too have heard, and ignored, the unsubstantiated
admonitions against using distilled water. I assumed they were based on
the fact that metals are soluble in very pure distilled water. While this
is true, the quantity of metal that has to dissolve before equilibruim is
reached, stopping the process, is *extremely* small, so small that metals
can be considered insoluable in water. Put another way, pure distilled
water added to a radiator becomes impure very quickly and the metals are no
longer soluble. If the engine was being continuously flushed with fresh
distilled water, it could be a problem, but in a closed system, it is not.
For the incurable paranoids, the theoretically best thing to use may be
bottled drinking water. This typically has small quantities of several
minerals left in to avoid the flat taste of distilled water, but little of
the more harmful salts. Perrier, anyone?
Russ Wilson
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