Hi all

Engine swap done over the weekend, updated job notes will follow.

 

Now then, engine I bought had one stripped plug thread. As I had no means of taking the whole engine to a machinist, I took the head off.

Head in hand, it turned out that the otherwise nice engine (honning marks still showing) had quite a lot of gummy deposits in the water passages in the head. Some blue-ish, some yellow-ish. Seems like previous owner has been playing a bit with different cooling liquids that werent exactly compatible.

 

Engine is now in car, running fine, temp gauge smack in the middle. Nevertheless I did ask the friendly subaru dealer who sold me the engine if there's any good flushing treatment for that kind of deposits. He told me to forget about all the expensive radiator flushing liquids out there and simply run the engine for a day with a solution of a pound of sodium bicarbonate (washing soda) in 1.5 gallons of demineralized water, flush again with water and then put antifreeze.

 

does anybody has experience with flushing with a sodium bicarbonate solution?

 

will be nice to know before applying...

Tnxs

TG

I'm pretty sure sodium bicarbonate is just baking soda, which is a bit basic but not terribly so if diluted with so much water, and EndWrench has a chart showing the corrosion rate of aluminum at various ph's so for a couple days I wouldn't think it would be so bad to run. Probably a lot better than prestone radiator flush which leaves a very soapy residue behind.

 

If I were going to do it, I would dissolve the baking soda in water before pouring the stuff into the radiator, use RO or distilled water in the mix, then flush at least once with RO or distilled water before putting in the final coolant mix.

 

Are you going to use OE Subaru coolant? Otherwise BASF G-05 (licensed to Zerex) might not be a horrid choice.

Yes that's basically baking soda and it'll stay in just one day

 

Need to check the basf stuff. I am based in italy so need to see what's available here.

 

cheers

TG