Coolant

[drillbit]

With over 200k on the 02 f250, is it time to flush the coolant? I have heard over the years that flushing can damage the water pump. Also the surpintine(?) belt appears to be in good cond. Is it a good idea to fix it , if it aint broke?

 

[dpantazis]

iirc coolant >should< be changed at 30k intervals. have you been checking the SCA's regularly? go to fleet.ford.com and poke around for owners manuals if you need them.

regardless- flushing done right should not damage the water pump. member fordforgotton has a good writeup on the procedure.

Green to Gold Coolant Conversion

i would ignore the green to gold conversion bits. green vs. gold is a hotly discussed topic. do it if you want, but consider yourself warned.

serpentine belt- my experience is that if you change the belt and tensioner, don't do the pump, the pump will fail soon thereafter. do you have any coolant weeping out of the pump drain hole? how are you rad hoses?

consider at least changing the thermo gasket and getting new thermo housing. you might be better off changing the thermo too. carefull on the housing bolts. they often are siezed in the aluminum housing. i could not seal mine up without any gasket goo.

poke about in the archives and use the search function for more users experiences.

dp

 

[JRJ04]

what is so controversial about the green vs. gold coolant?

 

[aklim]

supposedly with gold coolant you don't have to add the FW-15 additive. According to many discussions we have had, seems like you probably need Fleetrite or Rotella ELC (red one) to just fix it and forget it.

 

[black_cloud_stroker00]

If you stick with the green. Get the additive. I flushed my coolant and didn't put in the additive. about 3 mos later, my water pump started leaking from the weep hole. Could have been a coincedence, but who knows.

 

[roosterdiesel]

what is so controversial about the green vs. gold coolant?

The injector cups in the early models aren't compatible with the HOAT type coolant the G-O5 gold supposedly.


The heck with gold...a heavy duty ELC like the Cat ELC or Fleetrite ELC are way better and compatible with any year model. Just make sure you get all the old coolant out and DON'T mix them.