coolant quantity

Job for next week to drain flush and refill coolant on my td5 90, what coolant is best / recommended, what ratio to water, and apart from keeping front on stands any other tips to make it hassle free.

Also replacing brake and clutch fluid same question again, best fluid, tips.
Thanks

Most land rovers hold approx 10 litres of coolant and you want it 50/50 mix.
50/50 is good down the minus 35 degrees c
Use the red oats stuff, good for 5 years



Lynall

I stick half a gallon of antifreeze in mine, and never had any problems.

OSD

I drained mine last year and put in 5ltrs of the anti freeze we use in the DAF trucks at work, also when I top up the water i use a 50/50 mix all the time so it just gets stronger.

I did hear / read NOT to use to much antifreeze {ie 50/50 works and no stronger} as it looses its performance if no diluted... how true that is i dont know

50/50 OAT red as it does not eat the aluminium bits as much as ethylene glycol. Too much and surprisingly its not wet enough to transfer the heat properly which leads to hot spots within the engine.

Easiest way to make sure you get the right mix is to pre mix in a 20 litre plastic drum and fill your motor from there. Also means that any top ups are also of the same mix.

RedditchJay said:

I did hear / read NOT to use to much antifreeze {ie 50/50 works and no stronger} as it looses its performance if no diluted... how true that is i dont know

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Water has a very high specific heat capacity, in fact essentially the second highest, after ammonia. That is in other words how much energy it takes to raise its temperature by a given amount. So in the case of a cooling system, how much heat it can carry away.

Propylene glycol, Ethylene glycol or indeed any of the main active ingrediants in antifreeze have a fairly low specific heat capacity, so a system full of that would be great at protecting it against freezing but would struggle to carry the heat away when the engine was hot as it requires much less energy per unit than water to raise it's temperature the same amount.

In an ideal world coolant would be 100% water, but this would obviously freeze, boil sooner, setup a corrosion nightmare and would not lubricate the water pump (the slightly oily property of the glycol helps to lubricate the pump).

In hot countries the ideal mix is just enough antifreeze so that the anticorrosive properties work, and also to help increase the boiling point - I believe it is possible to get a boiling point increaser/anticorrosive.

A dot of washing up liquid or better washing machine powder (NOT DISHWAHER) is ideal to help "wet" (reduce surface tension) the water, in otherwords help it to get closer to the surface of the metal in the engine and radiator and help to transmit the heat. It also cuts through any oily bits on the block head removing hot spots.

cant you just use the ready mix red stuff from Halfords?

do you have to mix 50/50??

That stuff is more aimed for top ups as you would need at least 2 of them to fill the LR system.

That stuff is as it says premixed, so they are selling you half the volume of antifreeze but charging about the same price.

If I am filling an empty system I tend to pour in a gallon of antifreeze, a dot of washing up liquid and then fill with water (usuallys take about another gallon and a bit) which works out at about 40/60. Then I just test the freezing point of the coolant to make sure it will be suitable for the winter, but I do tend to start off with a heavy duty antifreeze which claims -40° at 50/50.

I used 5L on my 90, just changed the rad and used the red ready mix stuff..thought it would be alright?

Why buy "ready mix" which is half water when you can buy "neat" for roughly the same price? That way you get twice as much for your money when diluted. I buy 25 litres "neat" at a time and it does 4 or 5 complete changes.