antifreeze

[rose5691]

Hi, can anyone tell me what ratio of antifreeze for refilling my cooling system on a Ford cross flow and how much does the system take-also what should I use-red or blue as I haven't a clue of the difference,thanks,John.

[350Matt]

for summer use about 25% mix anti-freeze to water winter 50:50

and either red or blue work fine, as for how much god knows buy a gallon and it'll be plenty.

Matt

[thong]

50/50 mix even in summer it will cool a little better.

[rose5691]

thanks for that.

[GavinPearson]

I think you need to realise that this is more than trying to protect the engine & components from a cold spell, it is more about trying to prevent it from corroding itself to uselessness.

To give the best corrosion inhibition you want to ultimately run a 50/50 mix. But there is way more to this subject than you might think.

You do not want to use red or orange coolants (OAT) as it is incompatible with a lot of gasket materials on older engine, including RTV silicon.

What you should use is a traditional ethylene glycol antifreeze that is generally green, ideally with molybdate, borate, silicate & nitrite additive pack.

As your engine will probably have a ton of rust & junk in it you need to chemically clean it out - use Ferroquest FQ7101. This needs to be removed for two reasons - the engine will then cool noticeably better and the rust will use the inhibitor pack very quickly. Clean it and the coolant will last two years. And it really should be changed that often for that type of coolant (unfortunate, but it's just the way it is).

HTH.

[rose5691]

Thanks very much-is there a green one too? Just curious. Any idea on capacity of crossflow cooling system?

John.