Tom's '81 W-126 has been running warmish of late (100° C) so he brought it by this morning for a Citric Acid cooling system flush .
I found some wrong , American made hose clamps and as I replaced them with the correct ones , I removed the lower radiator hose to discover serious corrosion buildup on the hose nipple underneath the clamping area .
I used about 3 Oz. of Simple Green mixed with distilled water to de - grease the cooling system after I'd drained the old coolant out , he ran it up and down the hill and I flushed that out and mixed up some Citric Acid and distilled water , filled it back up again and we drove off to Pep Boys for new coolant , by the time we got back the water charge was light black , indicating the Citric Acid has done it's job , the corroded water neck (inlet) was also merrily pissing away , so I scraped it clean then burnished it with a toothbrush sized wire brush , by this time I could run my finger inside the water jacket and not get any red silt , dirt , corrosion etc. on it , this indicated the water jacket was nice and clean so then I flushed it a few more times , first with baking soda to neutralize the acid then plain distilled water to get it really clean and finally I re filled it with a 50/50 mix of coolant and distilled water , he drove off happily with no leaks nor overheating , he said later @ 80 MPH it ran 84° C so that's good .
Most of the hoses on this car are original so I think (hope !) he'll begin collecting the myriad hoses necessary to do a major water jacket service before too long .
We need to replace the seized up AC compressor too so we don't melt in Death Valley .
What a fun day ! my arms are aching , I took 500 Mg. of some pain killer and hope to be asleep soon .
Back to work to -morrow , more rain forecasted for Friday dammit .
-Nate
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