This normal? (1 Viewer)

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Apr 11, 2019
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Tampa Florida
Seems like I’m on here too much lol but I guess that comes w the territory of owning a FJ60. Anyone see this before? I haven’t. I just recently had to add a bunch of fluid due to my radiator hose cracking. Put a new hose on and added a few gallons of antifreeze. That was about two weeks ago. It’s not having any issues but it’s been sitting about 5 days and I decided to open the cap and see this on the inside of the radiator cap

942B357F-627C-47A4-AB6E-0CC866C1C5CD.jpeg
 
Check the inside of the oil fill cap.
That slime isn't "normal".
 
Looks like you mixed two incompatible types of coolant?

Thats what I'm thinking/hoping. Truck is fairly new to me and I haven't had time to flush anything. Radiator hose blew on me a few weeks ago so I just replaced and dumped some Peak coolant into it. Probably just whatever else was in there was a different type.
 
Drain from radiator and block drain. Load it with distilled water only and run it around for a few hours and drain, should clean it enough, but repeat if pretty dirty/grimey. Then put fresh coolant that’s phosphate/silicate free. Toyota is what I always use and it stays nice and red.
 
Looks like you mixed OAT and EG antifreeze....

If you did this DO NOT DRIVE THE TRUCK UNTIL YOU FLUSH IT!!! YOU WILL OVERHEAT AND POSSIBLY WARP OR CRACK THE HEAD -- OR WORSE!

Old Trucks are a PITA so you have to use what was spec'd.


1970869
 
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feck. So I just changed my fluid, thermostat and hoses. Used the Prestone OAT and diluted with distilled water. Been running great since then with no leaks and temperature comes right up to where its supposed to and maintains. Before, temperature would barely get off the "C" and I assumed the thermostat was somehow "stuck". Problem solved right?

On the maiden voyage home from PO, I topped off the overfill reservoir with OAT. I'm assuming PO's used OAT as I saw no gelling of anything when I drained and was replacing stuff.

The anal retentive side of me now wants to drain everything, run distilled water through it and then replace with the EGW. Is that crazy to think that or a good idea?
 
OAT coolant will clog the water passages in the head gasket if just a little ethylene glycol coolant was remaining in the system. And since that's always the case, a gummy hell is inevitable.

Dexcool antifreeze is an OAT coolant and it has earned the well deserved nickname of "Deathcool".

Drain & flush the hell out of your cooling system & then only add the green ethylene glycol antifreeze. If you don't.... You'll be back here in the future asking why your engine is overheating.
 
I would remove the Rad hoses and pressure back-flush the system. I would make sure the Radiator is not clogged with gel precipitate. I would then do as suggested above and run DI water with a chemical flush to neutralize remaining crap then refill with Zerex old Skool Green. The Toyota Red is good, if not better, but I just like the old EG green.
 
Can any case be made for once it’s been switched it’s better to stay with it provided I see no goo or any abnormal temperatures? Anybody been on OAT for a while? Results?
 
So I drained the system last night. No goo or anything out of the ordinary. Filled with distilled water only and ran for about half an hour and brought it up to temperature. Drained it again this morning and the fluid still had a green tinge to it. Filled with distilled wqater again. Was going to run it and bring up to temperature again, then drain and fill with EG/distilled water, but thinking the best thing to do is to take to a shop and have the entire system flushed clean as that seems the only way to get all of it out.
 
Make sure you run your heater while you have the distilled water in to get rid of anything in your heater core
 
Did you also drain it from the engine block petcock on the driver side of the block??...that drains a ton of fluid out.

Not sure if you need a shop to do it, but I would keep flushing it yourself using straight distilled water, drain the radiator AND the block, would suggest the rear heater line too if you have one. Don’t forget to dump and rinse the overflow bottle.

I ran Toyota red in my 62 for years. During a recent radiator and water pump replacement I switched back to plain old school Prestone green only because I wanted something I could buy off the shelf at any wal mart or any parts store...and that’s what these trucks came with in the ‘80’s.

I flushed mine 4-5 times with straight distilled over about a weeks time...went through A LOT of plastic jugs! Heads up though, every time I drained the straight water it was rusty, wouldn’t leave straight water in there for long. I even flushed the first dose of new Prestone out just to be sure....no rust. Amazing the rust inhibitors in coolant.

That said, there is soooo much sh*t on the shelves for coolants now, couldn’t believe it, I had to really look to make sure I was buying old school green. Be careful. FWIW, I buy straight coolant and mix myself 50/50.
 
Did you also drain it from the engine block petcock on the driver side of the block??...that drains a ton of fluid out.

Not sure if you need a shop to do it, but I would keep flushing it yourself using straight distilled water, drain the radiator AND the block, would suggest the rear heater line too if you have one. Don’t forget to dump and rinse the overflow bottle.

I ran Toyota red in my 62 for years. During a recent radiator and water pump replacement I switched back to plain old school Prestone green only because I wanted something I could buy off the shelf at any wal mart or any parts store...and that’s what these trucks came with in the ‘80’s.

I flushed mine 4-5 times with straight distilled over about a weeks time...went through A LOT of plastic jugs! Heads up though, every time I drained the straight water it was rusty, wouldn’t leave straight water in there for long. I even flushed the first dose of new Prestone out just to be sure....no rust. Amazing the rust inhibitors in coolant.

That said, there is soooo much sh*t on the shelves for coolants now, couldn’t believe it, I had to really look to make sure I was buying old school green. Be careful. FWIW, I buy straight coolant and mix myself 50/50.

yes, I do the block petcock also. forgot about running the rear heater. will do that next time. I've got 8 jugs of "stuff" in the garage now. No rust that I can see. How long is too long to keep the distilled water in the system? A couple days ok before being flushed out?

honestly, I can't believe this happened. I thought I was putting good ole ethylene glycol in it, but it's been so long since I've had to work on a vehicle (yes, it's been at least 20 years), I forgot they changed the formulations.
 
yes, I do the block petcock also. forgot about running the rear heater. will do that next time. I've got 8 jugs of "stuff" in the garage now. No rust that I can see. How long is too long to keep the distilled water in the system? A couple days ok before being flushed out?

honestly, I can't believe this happened. I thought I was putting good ole ethylene glycol in it, but it's been so long since I've had to work on a vehicle (yes, it's been at least 20 years), I forgot they changed the formulations.

I left water in mine for a couple days when I ran out of time to get it done. Maybe mine was just rusty, not sure, but I do know the rust color stopped when I put new coolant in it.
Still looks new.
Really have to read the labels, so much crap out there now.
 
Does it matter what type of coolant you use? Obviously you only want one type and mine was mixed, but for future use it shouldn’t really matter as long as it’s 50/50 right? I picked up 3 jugs of PEAK long life 50/50
 
Does it matter what type of coolant you use? Obviously you only want one type and mine was mixed, but for future use it shouldn’t really matter as long as it’s 50/50 right? I picked up 3 jugs of PEAK long life 50/50
I don't know, man. I just got off the phone with the mechanic that recharged the R12 AC system. He works on a lot of old cars and he said he uses Universal Extended Life yellow (prediluted) from O'Reilly's and hasn't seen any problems. I'm a firm believer in using the ethylene glycol for the older vehicles, but since I don't know what the PO's had in my 62, and I have seen no goo on my drainings, like you have, I'm thinking at some point in time the system was changed over to the Dexcool OAT antifreeze. If that's the case, if I put ethylene glycol in the system now, will I create more problems? I'm leaning towards just draining it one more time, filling with ethylene glycol/distilled water and watching it.
 

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